Monthly Archives: October 2011

The Road to Nowhere

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“Honey, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s take a ride on the road to nowhere!” Those words had hardly cleared my lips when my wife gives me “the look”. Sort of halfway between “are you serious?” and “on no, not another hair-brained idea”.

Well, there really is a “Road to Nowhere”. It’s located near Bryson City, NC and was born out of an agreement in 1943 between the National Park Service and the people of Swain County North Carolina. The US was in the middle of World War II. We needed aluminum to build aircraft. The Alcoa Aluminum production facility in Alcoa, TN needed electricity so the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was given funding by congress in 1941 to build Fontana Dam.

As a 1943 TVA promotional poster proclaimed:

We are building this dam…
To make the power…
To roll the aluminum…
To build the bombers…
To beat the bastards!

by 1970 only 7 miles of the promised road had been completed.

One problem was that the reservoir would require nearly 12,000 acres, displace 1,300 families and engulf the only road between Bryson City and Deals Gap. With the Fontana lake on one side and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the other, there would be no access for the displaced people to return to family cemeteries located on the north side of the lake. The solution was an agreement to build a new 30 mile road within the park. But, by 1970 only 7 miles of the promised road had been completed. Environmental issues with erosion and acid runoff from the exposed rocks and funding concerns led to years of delay and litigation. The road will never be completed and was finally resolved in 2010 when Swain County accepted a $52 million settlement from the park service.

So yesterday, we packed up the car and headed off to see this mysterious road. Upon arrival in Bryson City the first thing we had to do was visit the Bryson City Cemetery and find the grave of Horace Kephart. The Ken Burns film, America’s Best Idea, had a segment on the Smokies and it explained the critical role played by Kephart in the creation of the park. I guess I just wanted to stand near his grave and say thanks.

By now it’s getting close to lunchtime so we decide to get a bite to eat before heading to “nowhere”. (Only an idiot would go nowhere on an empty stomach!) Absolutely the best place for lunch or breakfast in Bryson City is the Everett Street Diner. It’s not fancy but, the food and service are outstanding. If you’re in the area, be sure to check it out. Besides, after you eat you can jump in your car and continue northwest on Everett Street until it turns into Fontana Road aka Lake View Drive aka The Road to Nowhere.

Lake View Drive travels along the north edge of the Tuckasegee River as it flows westward into Fontana Lake. The terrain is steep and beautiful with several excellent views of the surrounding mountains and the river below. The fall foliage appears bright and surrealistic almost like a water-colored painting.

The road itself is pretty typical of other roads within the park and is similar to the Blue Ridge Parkway. It has few official paved overlooks but, there are several pull-offs with excellent views. The pace is relaxed and the traffic is minimal. There are no facilities on the road and it only has one bridge and one tunnel. In fact, you can’t even drive through the tunnel.

The end of the Road to Nowhere appears in the form of a steel bollard barricade. A 500 foot walk from there reveals a 1,200 foot long, dark, graffiti filled tunnel. It seems like such a waste to see the marvelous stone masonry and hours of labor required to create a tunnel that has never and will never be used.

We really enjoyed our visit to the area and will certainly keep it in mind as a scenic but, less visited, section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Behold Linville Gorge

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Linville Gorge is often called “The Grand Canyon of North Carolina”. Once you see it you can understand why.

The terrain is so rugged that it was never logged

The peak on the left is “Hawksbill” and the one on the right is “Table Rock”. Elevation averages 4,000 feet atop Hawksbill Mountain and falls 2,000 feet to the Linville River in the valley. Linville Gorge is located a few miles south of Linville Falls, NC and is within the bounds of the Pisgah National Forest. The terrain is so rugged that it was never logged, making it one of the few examples of old-growth forest in the Eastern US.

This panorama was taken from Wiseman’s View which is about 1,500 feet above the river.

Rare and Exotic

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Sometimes I dream about photographing some rare and exotic animal like an Iberian Lynx or a Snow Leopard. Even better would be an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. I can just visualize it in my viewfinder but, then I wake up from the dream and slap myself back to reality. There is, however, a rare and exotic animal that I have found and photographed. You can too. Interested? Then read on…

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service lists them as Endangered.

Down here in the Southeast US there used to be thousands of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers (RCW’s). Since they only live in old-growth pine forests (which were logged out years ago) their numbers fell to near extinction due to loss of habitat. Today, there are fewer than 1% remaining. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service lists them as Endangered. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species lists them as Vulnerable. Sounds like “Rare and Exotic” to me!

Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge is a 35,000 acre refuge located 25 miles north of Macon, GA. It’s the home for approximately 40 clusters of RCW’s. Over 45 miles of gravel roads provide excellent access throughout the refuge. The only downside right now is that no “facilities” are currently available due to a large renovation project to rebuild the dam at Allison Lake. But, that’s not a big deal because the woodpeckers can be found elsewhere.

Driving to Piedmont NWR from the Atlanta area will take you down I-75. Take Exit 186 in Forsyth, GA and go left on Juliette Road toward Juliette, GA. If you’re going to be passing through Juliette anywhere from 11am to 4pm then you absolutely must stop at the Whistle Stop Cafe. Sound familiar? That’s where the movie Fried Green Tomatoes was filmed. The homestyle southern cooking is excellent and the service is superb. Start off with some fried green tomatoes and then chow down on a country fried steak, mashed potatoes, collard greens and cornbread. Wash it all down with sweet tea served in a Mason jar. Yum! Be sure to save room for the pecan cobbler.

OK, where was I? Oh yeah, rare little birds… You’ll want to print the full refuge map available on the FWS.gov website HERE. The refuge is divided into “compartments”. The area where I have seen RCW’s on multiple occasions is near a small pond in the northwest corner of the refuge in compartments 2, 3 and 4. (Marked with four red * in a small segment of the map shown here). They used to nest closer to Allison Lake but, after the dam broke and the lake dried up, the birds relocated.

Several of the nests are close to the road but, you have to know what you’re looking for. RCW’s are about the size of a Cardinal and only slightly larger than a Downy Woodpecker. Even though they are called RED-cockaded Woodpeckers it’s unlikely that you will ever see any red on the bird. The tiny red “cockade” is only visible on the males, when they’re in breeding plumage AND when they’re defending their territory. (I think the planets have to be in a certian alignment as well.) The way to find the birds is by first finding an active nest. The Rangers have done some of the work for you by painting green bands around trees to signify an RCW cluster is nearby and a white band to signify that an RCW nest is in that particular tree. Some of these nests are no longer active, however. Active nests can be found by looking for a hole 20-30 feet up the tree that has white sap running down the tree all around the area near the hole. RCW’s peck small holes in the tree to make the sap run as a deterrent to predators.

Once you find a likely active nest then just quietly hang out until the birds show up. Sometimes you will hear their drumming or more likely, their chirp. The best time to see the Red-cockaded Woodpeckers at Piedmont NWR is early in the morning or late in the afternoon in early Spring around March. That’s when they’re in breeding plumage and you may see the red “cockade”. But, the birds can be seen in the refuge year round.

Have fun and happy birding!

Double or Nothing

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I’ve been using the new Nikon 2X teleconverter since July. My old TC-20E has been gathering dust after buying a TC17E-II. Both the 1.4 and the 1.7 are clearly superior to the old 2X TC. In general, I try to avoid teleconverters and use them only as a last resort when more reach is needed. That being said, this new TC-20EIII is a huge improvement over the previous one.

Yes, you still lose 2 stops of light. Yes, it does degrade auto focus and sometimes causes the camera to “hunt” for focus. But, the sharpness and contrast of the new doubler is orders of magnitude better than the old one. My experience is that it still degrades image quality more than the 1.4 but, it’s pretty close to the 1.7.

The reason I bought the TC-20EIII is to use with my 500 f/4 when I need LOTS of reach.

The telephoto lenses in my bag currently include the Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 AFS VR I, 300 f/2.8 AFS VR I and the 500 f/4 AFS VR II. The only TC I ever use on the 70-200 is the 1.4 and I mainly use it on my D300. It makes a good walk around combo with nearly 300mm of reach…around 420mm with the crop factor. If I need more I would rather use the 300 f/2.8 than put a 1.7 or 2.0 on the zoom. The 300 is bigger and heavier but, I can hand-hold it. Also, the 300 f/2.8 seems to work with teleconverters better than the 70-200. If I need 500mm or more of reach and can manage to haul my tripod and gimbal mount to the location then it’s a no-brainer…I use the 500 f/4. I’m rarely happy with long-lens images that I take hand-held anyway. The reason I bought the TC-20EIII is to use with my 500 f/4 when I need LOTS of reach.

When I’m shooting little bitty birdies I sometimes have to pull out all of the stops to get anything close to “fill the frame” images. That means using the 500 f/4, the crop factor of the D300 and a teleconverter. Up until now that was usually the 1.7 and stopped down to an aperture of at least f/8. For me, the new doubler is a game changer. Consider these images:

This was shot in my backyard using the D300, 500 f/4, TC-20EIII. The aperture is wide open at f/8. ISO 800 and 1/250 sec. I used the LensAlign tool to calibrate my camera/lens setup by adding +20 to AF Fine Tune. The tripod & head are locked down and I’m using mirror-up with a cable release. (Click to view larger)

Take a closer look at this crop of the same image. Remember, this camera/lens combo is an effective 1500mm lens! (1.5 crop factor and 2.0x teleconverter). That’s a perfectly acceptable, but not perfect, image in my book.

How’s it work in the field? Well, here’s an image I shot using the same setup as above. This time I had to track the subject by panning which is tricky with an effective 1500mm lens. VR is turned on and I’m obviously not using mirror-up with a cable release. I think it looks ok even though it was shot in bad light.

In summary, I’m pleased that the new Nikon TC-20EIII is in my camera bag. It works well when used in those unique situations where you just have to have it. The performance is better than “digitally zooming” by cropping and the image quality is at least as good as the 1.7 teleconverter.

I recommend it.

Back in the Rut

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A couple of weeks ago my wife and I went up to Cataloochee Valley in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to see the elk. Late September to early October is the elk breeding season or “rut”. During this time you can clearly hear the eerie, long and haunting calls of the bull elk echoing through the mountains. It sounds a little like whale song.

Cataloochee is located near the Southeast corner of the Smokies on the North Carolina side of the park. It’s not as large or as heavily visited as Cades Cove most likely due to the difficulty in accessing it. The only way to get there is via a couple of steep and narrow gravel roads. Regardless, it’s worth the trip.

We usually come in through Waynesville, NC and stop by the Subway to get sandwiches to go. You’ll definitely want to take a cooler along with food and drinks because there’s nothing at Cataloochee. The only services they have are restrooms and some camping spots.

The Cataloochee herd is doing quite well and is reported to be around 140 today.

25 Elk were reintroduced in this area in 2001 and another 27 in 2002. These are Manitoban Elk which are the most similar to the now-extinct Eastern Elk that used to roam these hills. They’re a little larger than Rocky Mountain Elk and were nearly driven to extinction just like the Eastern Elk in the late 1800’s. The Cataloochee herd is doing quite well and is reported to be around 140 today.

Since we live just north of Atlanta, we visit the Smokies a lot. It’s an easy 3 hour drive up there so it makes for a nice day. In all of the times we have visited Cataloochee we have never failed to see elk. Usually, it’s after 4pm. Most of the time the bulls are near the Ranger’s Station in front of the Messer Barn eating the nice grass. The cows and young are found out in the larger fields.

Only during the rut do you see the males and females hanging out together and only the biggest and baddest bulls earn the right to mate with the females. The cows each join one of a few harems. Managing the harem is a full-time job for a bull with little time for eating. Keeping other bulls at bay and breeding is pretty much all they do at this time of year.

In the early years, all of the elk were fitted with ear tags and radio collars. Now that the herd is thriving, the Park Service is not doing that any longer. It’s a lot more photographer friendly.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing the elk at Cataloochee then you need to make a point of going there.