hiked to Ellicott's Rock this weekend

and down a few miles of the Chatooga River. My hiking buddy was leading and almost put his foot down on this little guy:



He was 3' long. That would've really ruined our weekend, and we were easily 2 hours from the nearest hospital.

Here's what our campsite was next to Friday night...we're in SC, the opposite bank is GA:











Here's a few screen captures from my iphone...I'm using the new AccuTerra app



Don't laugh at our pace...it includes stops for lunch and the occasional photo op which drags down your average

Ah yes, a copperhead. We've got a lot of those here in the Ozarks. They aren't very poisonous but apparently are more likely to bite than a rattlesnake. The thinking is that rattlesnakes have a warning (the rattle) but the copperhead doesn't and so tries to be aggressive to scare you off. That would have ruined your trip for sure.

That's a really gorgeous site you found! Makes me jealous because it's been a few weeks since I got out.

How did you find AccuTerra on the Iphone (I'm contemplating it too)

Don't know where Heber heard that copperheads aren't very poisonous. Ever had the real Asian flu, the kind with 104F temp? That's kind of what it will feel like, maybe times 5.
A timber rattler may kill you - a copperhead will make you wish you were dead. How do I know? One of my childhood friends in AL was bitten when we were playing in a pile of dead trees.

The upper Chattooga is beautiful indeed, with canyons and waterfalls. Sadly, the hemlock wooly adelgid is killing off the most beautiful (and some of the biggest) trees in the southern Appalachians. You can see a couple of dead ones in Turtle's photos. Those trees were alive and green only 2 years ago.

The wooly adelgid only affects Eastern hemlocks. The end of the hemlocks will change eastern forest every bit as much as the end of the chestnut tree. Except that the hemlock gives shade to mountain trout steams year-round. Hemlocks may survive in a few isolated locations that are not contiguous to the mountains, such as the moist canyons in areas of north Alabama, where the hemlock survived after the last ice age.

Oh well, probably more than ya'll wanted to know. I'm just a huge lover of hemlock trees.