The AT sticks stubbornly to the ridge top. The valleys are populated mostly by oak trees with a few prickly brambles and an occasional hemlock, but on the tops, a thin-branched, gnarled bush with stringy bark takes over. Last year’s leaves still cling to thousands of azalea bushes. Grass finds enough light through the thin canopy, and the whole scene looks airy and welcoming.
Elsewhere in the park, fire or disease have turned the tops into tree graveyards where pale, broken trunks stand over impassably dense nurseries of twiggy saplings.