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Early December Nature Explorations along The Natchez Trace Parkway

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On Wednesday, December 3, 2025, Judy and I made our first visit to the Natchez Trace Parkway, entering north of the Tennessee River in Alabama near Rock Spring (Mile Post 330) and exiting at the Meriwether Lewis Memorial (Post ~385) in Tennessee. The casual 55-mile journey served as a teaser for the entire 444-mile Parkway from Natchez, MS, to Nashville, TN. Come along with me to experience a taste of Nature and history.

 

Like most Department of the Interior National Park Service units, the Natchez Trace Parkway tells its story with excellent interpretive signage. I won’t burden the photo essay with narrative repeating details of history associated with Native American and early colonial modern developments.

 

The history is rich, colorful, positive, cruel, punishing, rewarding, and ugly. Choose the flavor you desire. It’s all there. Imagine boatmen and farmers who floated their products down the Mississippi river to market in Natchez, MS, then sold their flatboats as lumber and walked home 500 grueling miles along the Trace. That’s 35 days from punching the clock at the docks to arrive home to spouse and the kids! The sign reads, “By 1810, occasional travel had turned into a human flood; up to 10,000 passed along the well-trodden path each year.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Judy and I traveled leisurely, safely, and without threat of harm. We made our circuit, departing home after breakfast and returning in time for supper.

We encountered none of the listed hazards: torrential rains; swollen streams; thieves; swamps; or insects (“muskeetos & gnats & water very bad”):

I passed through the most horrid swamps I had ever seen. These are covered with a prodigious growth of canes and high woods, which shut out the whole light of days for miles. (Alexander Lewis, 1811)

Our camp was surprised in the night, and two of our horses stolen, by Indians. (Francis Baily, 1797)

I can adjust a simple handkerchief about my head and face in a way to parry the mosquitoes, or their more formidable companions the horseflies. (Herman Blennerhassett, 1807),

 

Each stop offered interpretation and explanation. I want to return to explore such delights as these. Rock Spring Trail is a 20-minute saunter exploring woodland and several beaverdams.

 

Ten thousand annual traipsers, countless horses, oxen, and mules, iron-rimmed wagons, and other means of coveyance, during dry seasons and mud-plagued torrents, scarred the Trace, in places leaving an obvious sunken pathway. Prior to European settlement, Native Americans traversed these hills and crossed its streams for more than 10,000 years. Every chain (66 feet; 80 chains to a mile) along the length has stories to tell.

 

The sign presents a multi-generational, multi-millennial theme, comprising volumes of decadal tales of adventure, discovery, love, war, life, and death:

This early interstate road building venture produced a snake-infested, mosquito-beset, robber-haunted, Indian-traveled forest path. Lamented by the pious, cussed by the impious, it tried everyone’s strength and patience.

 

As the sign notes:

Here you see three cuts made to avoid mud into which oxcarts and wagons sank, making progress slow, dangerous, or even impossible.

 

Although enamored with and captivated by this dip into the etheral world of intersecting human venture, natural history, time, and seasons, I kept my eyes alert for Nature’s oddities, curiosities, and mysteries. A black cherry tree infected with the fearsome countenance of a fungal black knot canker (Apiosporina morbosa) demanded my attention and implored a photograph. I wondered whether some handsome Indian warrior in 1026 might have mused on a Prunus serotina similarly infected?

 

The McGlamery Stand, a combination inn and trading post, served travelers near this location from 1849, closing before 1865. Its name persisted through the next 150 years. Can any of us expect our 2026 moniker (our individual identity) to last beyond 2176?! I am blessed beyond imagination that the lovely young lady at right still carries my surname 54 years after she graciously adopted it in 1972!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, to inhale the magic of a mild autumn afternoon along a serene stillwater stream!

The branch is still carving and shaping the valley, you may follow the struggle of trees and other vegetation to gain a hold in the shallow rocky soil in the bottom in a 15-minute stroll along this narrow trail.

 

 

I cling to the emotional power of any southland stream still carving and shaping its valley! Five hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci observed:

Water is the driving force of all Nature!

I recorded this 59-second video at Sweetwater Branch.

 

The Driving Force of All Nature! Who can debate or challenge the half-millennial wisdom of an incredible polymath? No telephone, computer, AI, camera, or combustion engine! No view of our pale blue Earth from Apollo in moon orbit! Yet, he knew, saw, and felt so much more then we in our digitally-distracted world. It’s high time we fattened sheep got into the great out there; time to get out of the darkness into the light!

Here is my 39-second video focusing on the crystal clear water. What could da Vinci have done with my iPhone?

 

Each stop along our brief trip suggested hours of contemplation and exploration. My career demanded much from me. I seldom had the leisure to devote to what I might have learned when young, physically capable, intellectually exquisite, and tireless. However, it is only now that I yearn to delve deeply enough to probe the depths beyond career expediency. As I listened and yearned for more time to sit quietly, I thought of Chickasaw poet and novelist, Linda Hogan:

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.

Glenrock Branch at milepost 365, yet another stop, stirred my heart, soul, body, mind, and spirit. I wanted more than our superficial circuit allowed.

 

I recorded this 59-second video at Glenrock Branch.

 

I’m a champion of and advocate for special places and everyday Nature. How many did we see along our 55 mile journey, where we discovered an endless fountain?

 

Still at Glenrock Branch, a towering American beech stood creekside (left). Nearby, an Eastern redcedar provided dormant season shade.

 

Another beech showed mirthful character with its apparent (to observers with vivid imagination) multiple facial expressions. I see eyes, noses, and mouths. Contrast its expressive trunk (i.e. an extrovert) to its kin above left and beyond it at right, clearly, like me,  a certifiable introvert.

 

I love catchy, provocative place names, especially those attached to local conditions and experiences:

A mile to the south, the Old Natchez Trace crossed a depression in the flat, dogwood-coverred ridge. After heavy rains it became almost impassable for wagons. Its name, Dogwood Mudhole, recalls the ordeals of travel. It shows, too, how place names arising from local conditions of long ago are carried down through the years.

 

Stephen Edward Ambrose (January 10, 1936 – October 13, 2002) was an American historian, academic, and author. He published Undaunted Courage (1996), telling the nearly unfathomable 48-month tale of daring and courage of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery. They led the 33-member Corps approximately 8,000 miles, from St. Louis, Missouri to the Pacific Ocean and back.

 

Defying all odds, the Corps completed its mission, losing only a single member, not to accident or hostiles, but to pneumonia. Mr. Lewis succumbed at this site along the Trace, to internal demons, stronger than his fame, courage, or continental conquest.

 

 

 

 

 

The monument and its massive oak triggered an emptiness in my heart. A man who soared with eagles died alone, scared, and helpless in the wilds of west Tennessee. As I read Undaunted Courage, I pictured Lewis and Clark transitioning to the hereafter with angels singing and trumpets blaring. The sad and troubled soul passed without fanfare.

 

Like other stops, the Meriwhether Lewis memorial presented hiking opportunities. Alas, we allowed no time in our itinerary for pleasant side excursions.

 

I wondered whether this dogwood tree, batttered, dead, and tortured, once bore a heavenly spring shroud of white-blossom elegance. Did it live a daring and courageous life, only to die alone, scared, and helpless…without fanfare?

 

Instead, I’ll bring this essay to close by celebrating that the Trace lives on through a million tales from along its 250 years and 35,520 chains of beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration!

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Water is the driving force of all Nature! (da Vinci)

  • The Natchez Trace carves a multi-generational, multi-millennial theme, comprising tales of adventure, discovery, love, war, life, and death. (Steve Jones)

  • Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Einstein)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones.

Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2026 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron. All Rights Reserved.”

 

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Subscribe to my free weekly photo essays (like this one) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

A reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied by untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and understand their Earth home more clearly.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2025) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

 

 

Brief Form Post 51: Summiting Evitts Mountain and Reaching the Mason-Dixon Line

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I am pleased to add the 51st of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So, I will publish these brief Posts regularly.

 

On July 29, 2025, grandson Jack and I hiked the six-mile Evitts Mountain Homesite Trail in western Maryland’s Rocky Gap State Park. See my related photo essay on natural features we explored in our trek from base to summit (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2025/10/08/hiking-the-homesite-trail-at-rocky-gap-state-park/). I focus this Brief-Form Post on the summit, the view, the Mason-Dixon line, and the survey benchmark at the summit boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania.

A high school senior, Jack is a history enthusiast. He understood the significance of standing at the survey monument 259 years after Charles Mason, a mathematician and astronomer, and Jeremiah Dixon, a surveyor, hacked and traipsed their meticulous progress across the frontier wilderness. Both men were members of the Royal Society, a British learned society formed to promote excellence in science. The survey set out to resolve the long-standing (since 1681) disputed boundaries of the overlapping land grants of the Penns, proprietors of Pennsylvania, and the Calverts proprietors of Maryland.

 

A string of power transmission towers parallels the line just to the north of the monument. Utility maintenance crews control ROW vegetation, opening a vist to the east (left) and west (right). Note on the westerly view that the power line extends across the ridges and beyond. The survey party powered (man and horse power) through raw untrammeled forest

 

 

In pre-Civil War days, the line separated slave states to the south and free-soil states to the north.

Here is my 60-second video atop Evitts Mountain

 

Evitt’s summit stands at ~2,200 feet, just 200 feet shy of Alabama’s highest point, Mount Cheaha. This ridge and valley landscape is my birth home terrain. I explored the Nature of this region from my earliest memories…hiking, camping, hunting, picnicing, and fishing. I hope that Jack feels some of the magic.

 

 

 

I know he appreciated our venture. I asked him to record and narrate a brief summit video.

 

Jack is the young one to the left!

 

I recorded a 39-second video of the survey monument.

 

Having grown up in Cumberland, Maryland, just 5-7 miles from the Pennsylvania line, I rekindled a strong homing emotion at the monument. Memories flooded back to hikes and outings with Dad. I hope that Jack stores, within reach, recollections of his Mason-Dixon venture with Pap.

As a hopeless, lifetime Nature enthusiast, I must end this essay with two Nature observations. Great mullein stood in full flower and velvet-leafed splendor at the power line.

 

A pair of two-striped grasshoppers found reason to celebrate the midday glory atop Evitts Mountain, atop a great mullein leaf, and just plain atop!

 

Closing

 

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, a task far more elusive than assembling a dozen pithy statements.

Granted, the Central Appalachians pale in comparison to even the Great Smokies or New Hampshire’s Presidential Range. Yet to a 74-year-old Nature enthusiast who in the 26 months preceding our hike, endured triple bypass surgery, two total knee replacements, bilateral inguinal hernia repair, and kidney stone blasting, I cherished trekking 1,100 feet to Evitts’ summit and relished our rest at he Mason-Dixon monument, serving as a healing and recovery benchmark.

We paused at the monument. I heard (not literally) the echoes of Mason and Dixon as they memorialized yet another ridgetop survey monument. I realized and included in Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits this simple reflection:

We do not stand apart from Nature, but are one with it!

Nature’s special treats await our discovery, our understanding, and our interpretation!

 

Subscribe to my free weekly photo essays (like this one) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

Leighton, Alabama, A One Square Mile Whistle Stop on the Singing River Trail!

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Note: I am flagging this photo essay as one of a sub-series that introduces the Nature of the emerging Singing River Trail (SRT):

A 200+ mile greenway system that strengthens regional bonds and creates new health and wellness, educational, economic, tourism, and entrepreneurial opportunities for the people and communities of North Alabama.

 

As a designated Ambassador to the Singing River Trail, I occasionally visit a destination along the route to explore and highlight worthy Nature attractions. I visited historic Leighton, initially known as Crossroads due to its strategic location at the intersection of two early stagecoach roads in Colbert County, on August 21, 2025. I distilled my tour, hosted by Derick Silcox, the Mayor, to two Posts:

  • The Town: A One Square Mile Whistle Stop on the Singing River Trail
  • Leighton, AL: Nature Attractions within Reach of The Town

I focus this Post on The Town.

The Town

 

I am a consumate forest scientist, naturalist, educator, conservation advocate, and lifelong Nature enthusiast. Presenting Leighton through that dense filter demanded concentrated focus. I will play with the term nature, using:

  • All the animals, plants, rocks, etc. in a locale and all the features, forces, and processes that happen — my realm.
  • The basic or inherent features of something — the more human sphere.

I met Mayor Silcox at the Leighton Museum. The banner embraces my realm, The Land, and the human sphere, The Lives and The Legacy. The three are intimately interdependent.

 

SRT’s Leighton backbone runs along Main Street south to the intersection at the woods line (left) and north past the railroad crossing (see further below).

 

The composite of the forest evident to the south, the urban trees across the street from the museum, and the summer sky above reminds me that every place includes natural features, The Land, as well as The Lives and the Legacy. I’ll touch on all three.

 

Historical Roots (Lives and Legacy)

 

I recorded this 30-second video as a coal train passed west to east through Leighton, just north of the Leighton Museum where I began my tour of town and some regional nearby environmental, economic, and historical attractions.

 

The coal train epitomizes our absolute dependence on The Land. In this era of divergent opinions on fossil fuel use, renewable energy, and climate as existential risk, or not, we cannot yet live and thrive without power sources derived from The Land. The train barrels through Leighton transporting 100 or more gondolas from mine to power plant.

Electricity, most likely generated from coal (or perhaps TVA hydro), powered the museum’s illumination of the enormous 350 million-year-old fern fossil, found nearby at LaGrange Cemetery, a site I’ll visit in my subsequent Leighton Post. Native Americans occupied this region for 13,000 years, leaving the mark of their Lives on the Land and Legacy (museum exhibit at right).

 

Leighton’s music wall mural (Missy Miles 2023) highlights Leighton’s own Percy Sledge and fellow R&B singer Jimmy Hughes, both part of Florence’s Fame Recording Studios legacy.

 

Here is my 46-second video recording at the music wall and mural.

 

The SRT will transit the sidewalk keyboard, recognizing the town’s rich musical heritage. Visitors can plan a trip during Sledgefest, a lively festival celebrating Percy Sledge, Leighton’s award-winning R&B, soul, and gospel singer.

 

The museum features other important elements of Leighton’s Lives and Legacy.

 

This old forester cannot do justice to The Town’s Lives and Legacy, with this brief Post. Allow me, instead, to pay a little more attention to the Nature of Leighton.

 

Nature of Leighton

 

My expertise is in the Nature of wild places: a bachelors degree in forestry; PhD in applied ecology; 12 years in the forest products industry; 35 years at nine different universities; eight years writing, speaking, and teaching in retirement. I will stretch into exploring the Nature of a small town whistle stop along the SRT, broadly characterized as The Land. I took many photos emphasizing Nature; I won’t burden you with a lot of narrative. I hope to provide a teaser, tempting readers and SRT enthusiasts to take a closer look.

As the former Director of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System (1996-2001), I was pleased to see this partnership sign. I speak often of the beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and Inspiration of Nature. Hallelujah!

 

A key component of understanding and enjoying Nature is getting into the out there, where seeing, feeling, listening, smelling (inhaling), and touching are conduits.

 

Founders Park lies on the east side of The Town, offering a great orientation to The Land. Agricultural fields, the railroad, the firmament (sky or heavens) arching overhead, a grove of trees, and an historical sign aggregate to portray The Land and the park.

 

 

 

 

I recorded this 36-second video at Founders Park.

 

The old forester (that’s me) enjoyed the spreading oak and relished a skyward view through its massive canopy.

 

We slipped south to Leighton’s athletic park and sports complex. Mayor Silcox proudly showcased a beautiful retention lake behind a chainlink fence, hinting at plans to develop the pond as a recreational feature. The egret at right has already assumed possession of this natural asset.

 

Leighton’s Outdoor Classroom and Nature Park represents another partnership, this one with the Alabama Forestry Commission. I’ve learned across my 74 years that there is little we can do in isolation. Partnerships, whether within families, communities, corporations, higher education, or rural towns are essential. I compliment Mayor Silcox for reaching out and engaging with allied groups and agencies.

 

 

 

 

A park greeter welcomed us. We encountered a female river cooter depositing eggs in the lawn near the classroom seating.

 

 

 

 

 

Interpretation signage identifies this black oak tree.

 

A shaded pathway ushers visitors through the forest. I seldom miss a chance to direct attention vertically into the canopy. Trees vigorously compete for sunlight, just as roots seek their share of soil space, nutrients, and moisture. It’s a dog-eat-dog world in our forests. Only the strong survive and thrive.

 

We completed our square-mile Leighton auto-tour at a couple-acre park, with an an impressive state-of-the-art playground.

Leighton

 

Accessory Attractions

 

Back at our museum starting point, Derick showed me the Leighton Bump on a Log! I’ll always be a sucker for corny humor!

 

I persuaded Derick to provide a measure of scale for this massive oak. I’m sure that this full-crowned Quercus has many stories it could tell of this wonderful Crossroads town.

 

My eye for tree form oddities and curiosities remains alert for specimens in the forests that I wander, as well as in urban settings. This backyard loblolly pine beckoned me for a closer look. The circumferential ridges extend along the entire bole up to the live crown. This feature results from the tree’s response to yellow-bellied sapsuker drill wounds. See my March 2024 Post for explanation: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2023/03/24/brief-form-post-on-loblolly-pine-tree-form-curiosity-at-joe-wheeler-state-park/

 

Leighton, Alabama is a Nature-enriched special place, a whistle-stop along the Singing River Trail!

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • A key component of understanding and enjoying Nature is getting into the out there. (Steve Jones)
  • Nature’s gifts are hidden in plain sight whether in wild forests or along small town streets. (Steve Jones)
  • I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. (Albert Einstein)
  • Curiosity rewards Nature enthusiasts who explore whistle stops along the SRT! (Steve Jones)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2025 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

The Nature of the Singing River Trail

 

The Singing River Trail will be a 200+ mile greenway system that strengthens regional bonds and creates new health and wellness, educational, economic, tourism, and entrepreneurial opportunities for the people and communities of North Alabama.

 

 

The trail will prominently feature many off-shoots of the core trail. Leighton, Alabama is representative of the unique whistle stops and special places along the trail. My hope is that SRT venturers can search these Great Blue Heron Posts to better understand the Nature of our region.

As a lifelong devotee of hiking/sauntering, running, biking, and Nature exploration, I envision multiple other Great Blue Heron weekly photo essays focused on The Nature of the Singing River Trail. I will incorporate individual essays into my routine Posts that total approximately 450 to-date (archived and accessible at: https://stevejonesgbh.com/blog/). I offer these Mooresville Cemetery related photo essays as an orientation to the new component series.

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

 

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

 

The Nature of the Singing River Trail

 

The Singing River Trail will be a 200+ mile greenway system that strengthens regional bonds and creates new health and wellness, educational, economic, tourism, and entrepreneurial opportunities for the people and communities of North Alabama.

 

 

The trail will prominently feature many off-shoots of the core trail. The Richard Martin Trail is an 11-mile (22 out and back) route segment reaching from Athens to the Tennessee line. My hope is that SRT venturers can search these Great Blue Heron Posts to better understand the Nature of our region. Here is my May 2022 Post on the Richard Martin Rails to Trails: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2022/06/07/early-summer-on-the-richard-martin-rails-to-trail/

As a lifelong devotee of hiking/sauntering, running, biking, and Nature exploration, I envision another Great Blue Heron weekly photo essay series focused on The Nature of the Singing River Trail. I will incorporate individual essays into my routine Posts that total approximately 450 to-date (archived and accessible at: https://stevejonesgbh.com/blog/). I offer these Mooresville Cemetery related photo essays as an orientation to the new component series.

 

 

Part One 175-Year-Old C&O Canal Pawpaw Tunnel: Where Nature Meets Engineering and History

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I once again visited the Pawpaw Tunnel on the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) National Historical Park on July 28, 2025. Alabama grandsons, Jack (17) and Sam (11), accompanied me. I grew up 30 miles upstream along the Potomac River in Cumberland, Maryland. I wanted the boys to experience the Nature, history, and engineering marvel of the tunnel and canal. We walked east through the 3,600-foot tunnel, traversed a mile beyond it, and then hiked the Tunnel Hill Trail over the mountain to return to the parking area. Part One (this Post) carries us through the tunnel; Part Two takes us back over the Tunnel Hill Trail.

 

The Tunnel

 

Jack and Sam stand above the west end of the tunnel, completed in 1850 (175 years ago!). The structure has stood the test of time. The east end is a pinprick of distant light. Midway through, the darkness is near total.

 

Here is my 59-second video at the west (upstream) entrance.

 

I’ve been to the tunnel scores of times across my seven decades. Camping with my parents and siblings beside the tunnel-tender’s canal-era house adjacent to the river. Fishing on the bank, often at night for catfish. I recall once Dad and me holding frantically to tent poles during a fierce storm that threatened to tear away our shelter. Cooking chili on a Coleman stove. Breakfasts of sauage, eggs, and hashbrowns. The list of indelible memories reaches endlessly. My experiences from those formative years shaped me, sculpted my lifetime addiction to Nature…propelled me to a forestry degree, a meaningful career committed to natural resources sustainability, and a retirement dedicated to:

Employing writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

 

Because I neglected to photograph the tunnel’s interior in July, I borrowed a photo I took in November 2019.

C&O Canal

 

The east (downstream) end of the tunnel is forever etched in my memory. Immigrant laborers with picks and shovels, black powder, wheelbarrows, drag-sleds, and horse/mule carts began construction in 1836; the first boats passed through 14 years later. Crews worked from both ends and from two 360-foot vertical shafts. I’d like to visit in 2036, the centennial anniversary of pickaxes first striking the shale. Eleven years hence takes me to age 85. What are the chances of me retaining life, health, vigor, endurance, and mental acuity for another 4,015 sunrises? There is no guarantee even that I or any one of us will witness tomorrow’s dawning. I take comfort that I will seek the goal one step after another, visiting special places and enjoying everyday Nature as I’m able.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photo from the National Park Service Pawpaw Tunnel brochure during operations more than 100 years ago shows little difference from today’s image. The tunnel is timeless, except that the decades have moved beyond it. I can’t imagine much change between now and 2036.

 

Interestingly, the brochure notes:

In the span of a lifetime, canals faded from beacons of a dawning age to quaint reminders of a bygone era. From 1828 to 1850 thousands of immigrants found work–and hope for a new life–building a canal. Families worked and lived on the long, narrow boats, and children often tended the mules. 

Nature doesn’t care about the blossoming and disappearance of technologies, the tough life of hopeful humans tending the boats, or the miserable fights among immigrant laborers. Moss grows on the dripping sidewalls at the tunnel exit, shrubs sprout on the shale scree, and spring rains temporarily flow in the long-abandoned channel. Decomposers relentlessly attack the wooden decking. My ken is to follow the process over the fleeting years of my lifetime, when little of the tunnel’s countenance has changed from the quaint reminder I relish.

 

I recorded this 53-second video at the east portal.

 

I ponder whether Jack and Sam will catch the fever enough to visit when I and my Pawpaw Tunnel Blog are little more than their own quaint reminder. I wonder who else will care. From the east end exit, the boardwalk stretches through the cut into the distance. How far into the decades will my passion persist?

 

Those thoughts accompanied me as the boys and I sauntered beyond the tunnel and its deep cut through the shale. Perhaps a better verb suggests that my ruminations haunted me. Lift lock 66, numbered consecutively upstream from the Georgetown terminus, captured our interest and spurred our imagination. Like the tunnel, the lock resonated with faint echoes of the thousands of long-gone souls who worked, lived, played, and prayed along the canal. This was the future…fading to a quaint reminder. Nature lives on, finding and claiming its place. My role in leading our trek, planting seeds for tomorrow in the boys, and probing was to encapsulate our experiences in this weekly photo essay.

 

I recorded a 58-second lift-lock video, chronicling Nature finding and claiming its place.

Nothing in Nature is static, including the works of man. Were the 184.5 miles of the canal not preserved as a National Historical Park, Nature would hve revegetated the towpath, canal, infrastructure, and associated memories to obscurity. I recall celebrating in 1971, when the tireless efforts of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas prompted Congress and the President to secure protection and preservation for the important recreational and environmental landmark. There was talk of converting the landmark to a Blue Ridge Parkway kind of roadway. Douglas penned a seminally persuasive letter to the Washington Post:

I feel that if your editor did [walk the towpath with Douglas], he would return a new man and use the power of your great editorial page to help keep this sanctuary untouched. … He would see strange islands and promontories through the fantasy of fog; he would discover the glory there is in the first flower of spring, the glory there is even in a blade of grass; the whistling wings of ducks would make silence have new values for him. Certain it is that he could never acquire that understanding going 60, or even 25, miles an hour.

I was 20 years old, a junior in forestry school, and already addicted to the magic of the C&O Canal. My memories run deep and indelibly for this sacred (to me) recreational and environmental landmark!

I will repeat the circuit another time, when I return, preferably during the dormant season. Like so many of my special places and the everyday Nature that defines them, the C&O Canal and Pawpaw tunnel extend tendrils deep into my mind, body, heart, soul, and spirit. Where do those intense feelings and vivid memories go when we are called Home? Perhaps fragments will live on through my children, Matt and Katy, and in Jack and Sam, Katy’s boys. Robert Louis Stevenson nailed the sentiment:

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Nature is a mosaic of place, time, and use; every landscape reflects the past and portends the future. (Steve Jones)
  • Nature lives on, finding and claiming its place. (Steve Jones)
  • My experiences from those formative years shaped me, sculpted my lifetime addiction to Nature…propelled me to a forestry degree, and a meaningful career committed to natural resources sustainability. (Steve Jones)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2025 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

 

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

 

 

 

 

Observations from the Narrows in Western Maryland: A Step back to My Roots!

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I grew up in Cumberland, Maryland, one of the transportation gateways to and over the Appalachian Mountains, a portal to the Ohio frontier and beyond. The Potomac River Valley rises over 600 feet from Washington, D.C.’s tidewater to Cumberland. I visited my hometown in late July 2025. My two Alabama grandsons, Jack (17) and Sam (11), accompanied us. On July 28, we three sauntered two miles through the Narrows along the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP), a 144-mile Rails-to-Trails that stretches from Cumberland to Pittsburgh, PA. I offer photos, brief videos, reflections, and observations on the intersection of human and natural history, overlain by my personal musings.

This view is downstream from the western terminus of the C&O Canal. Years ago, I biked from this point on the foreground gravel trail, the 184.5-mile towpath to Georgetown. Flood control construction in the 1950s erased the canal and towpath infrastructure at this location, leaving the gravel path along the levee for beginning the trek to Washington. West Virginia, across the river, rises to the right.

 

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal began as a dream to wealth in the West. Operating for nearly 100 years, it was a lifeline for communities along the Potomac River as coal, lumber, and agricultural products floated down the waterway to market. (National Park Service)

Railroad commerce proved economically superior and better able to withstand river flooding, which in 1924 forced the canal’s closure.

Today the canal (A National Historic Park) endures as a pathway for discovering historical, natural, and recreational treasures.

[Dedication: I dedicate this Post to John Milford Parker, Jr. who passed away September 3, 2025. John was among the three people who accompanied me on the bicycle trip to Georgetown. We also occasionally fished, hunted, and hiked together when I returned to western Maryland to visit family. From his obituary: The hunt is over; the woods are still. May he rest in peace on God’s eternal hill.]

From the same point, Cumberland’s hilltop steeples rise where colonial Fort Cumberland once commanded the frontier transportation hub. Beyond the churches, Haystack (left) and Wills (right) Mountains tower nearly 1,000 feet above the Narrows gorge.

 

This 60-second video sets the stage for my trek with Jack and Sam through the Narrows.

 

The historic  railroad station stands less than a quarter mile from the 184.5-mile canal photo point. In my younger years I biked the GAP from Pittsburgh to this endpoint. Sam explored the eastside plaza. Six and one-half decades earlier, at about Sam’s age, I watched my maternal grandfather depart the station for his final B&O Railroad train run to Pittburgh. A World War I veteran, Pap engineered both steam locomotives and diesels. I watched his departure with rapture and deep envy. Rapture because I revered Pap and loved trains. Envy because my teenage brother sat in the cab waving with Pap as they tooted farewell heading to Pittsburgh.

 

 

 

 

 

As the three of us completed our morning walk through the Narrows, the Western Maryland Scenic Line locomotive surprised us departing, like Pap so many decades ago, from the station outbound through the Narrows.

 

I recorded this 60-second video of the mighty engine departing Cumberland.

 

The fading train reminded me that I’m gazing at my own metaphorical sunset from a long and distant dawn, when Mom and Dad brought me to see Pap’s retirement departure. I’ve been blessed to have lived well across the decades, returning repeatedly to these Allegheney Mountains, and their Nature that has nourished and enriched my life and living. So much in my own life, and across Nature, distills to seasons, chapters, and volumes. I’ve enjoyed 74 spring surges in ecosystems and terrains where I’ve resided…from these mountains to the Adirondacks to Alabama’s southern Appalachians to New Hampshire’s Whites to the Alaska Range and more. Different sections in Earth’s physical and life library.

 

So much for my home-woods nostalgia. Let’s head to the Narrows. My recollection is that the Narrows GAP trail is the only paved segment of the 144-mile total length. The shrub-vegetated strip borders the trail on the highway 20-feet below, which hugs Wills Creek another 20-feet below it. The far side at the base of Wills Mountain carries two tracks of the still active Chessie System. The RR sign below signals bikers and pedestrians to carefully cross the rail ahead as the GAP crosses to the tail-slope side of the trail.

 

The Narrows is a natural canyon. Its geologic history is complex. Wills Creek occupies the canyon that separates Wills and Haystack. The Creek did not cut down through the continuous ridge called by the two different names. Instead, the ridge rose up during the Appalachian-building process, and the stream cut its path as the landmass uplifted. I will stop there before I venture even deeper into a science remote from my own.

 

I recorded this 52-second video of the Narrows near our turn-around point two miles from Cumberland.

 

We began our trek 15 minutes before a heavy shower forced us under the eaves of a commercial building near the trail. We dried as the skies cleared and a hot summer sun baked us.

 

I recorded this 57-second video offering commentary on my 74-year personal and professional story that began in these Allegheny Mountains.

 

The Haystack Mountain tailslope forest provides afternoon shade for the trail. Knowing the long period of coal-fired rail traffic, I wondered how many times hot cinders ignited the forest. The current stand has likely not burned since the onset of diesel locomotives.

 

We found a large patch of Japanes knotweed, an aggressive invasive. I reluctantly admit that the plant has particularly attractive shiny foliage.

 

After the shower, the boys stand dripping beside one of the benches, acknowledging a longtime GAP proponent and supporter.

I could not resist posting this snapshot as one of 15-or-so rail pedal-carts trundled toward Cumberland. The recreational vendor boards passengers at Frostburg, about a dozen miles up the GAP from Cumberland. I’ve biked the route, enjoying a nearly pedal-free coast to the Narrows and then a flat ride to the railway station. The occupants pedaled past us. In Cumberland, the passengers return to Frostburg aboard the Western Maryland Scenic Line. The vendor somehow transports the carts back to Frostburg. Perhaps a diesel engine pulled them as a train?

 

An historic frontier transportation and industrial hub, Cumberland now draws sustenance from its Natural beauty and recreational amenities. The place I loved as a youth, that shaped my future direction and life, has deepened and polished its Nature-luster, drawing me to its breast…nurturing me and fanning a nearly latent homing instinct. No, don’t fret…I won’t be vacating my retirement domicile, but I did feel the attraction.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • A historic frontier transportation and industrial hub, my hometown now draws sustenance from its natural beauty and recreational amenities. (Steve Jones)
  • The place I loved as a youth, that shaped my future direction and life, has deepened its Nature-luster. (Steve Jones)
  • Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. (Albert Einstein)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2025 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future