Falling for Falling Waters

In 1971, when my wife and I were college students, we stuffed our luggage and ourselves into a Volkswagen Beetle, filled it with 31-cents-a-gallon gasoline, and left New Orleans for week’s vacation. Two days later, our VW chugged past the mom-and-pop campgrounds, motor lodges, and souvenir shops that lined the road in Townsend, Tennessee, and entered the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  That’s when we first set eyes on the Little River. I had fished and paddled the slow-moving bayous of south Louisiana, but I had never seen a mountain stream, and nothing like the Little River, with its miles of rocks, riffles, and cascades. It was on this trip that we decided to make our home near the mountains, and for the past 33 years, we have lived within 15 minutes of the crest of the Blue Ridge.  What we love most about the mountains is the water—the streams that rush over moss-covered stones and the scoured trunks of fallen trees. Nearly all of our favorite hikes are along rivers, among them the Rose River in the Shenandoah National Park, the St. Mary’s River in the George Washington National Forest, and of course, the Little River and its tributaries in the Smokies, where we have returned many times.  These rivers provide clean water and aquatic habitat that are vital to our region’s ecology, but they also provide places for experiencing a special kind of tranquility and renewal—resources that also deserve our protection.