The nature of writing

Hub City Press publishes book on all that’s great about the great outdoors

NOVEMBER 4, 2010 11:50 a.m. (0)

People almost always hurry though the woods as if keeping the very schedules they fled to the wilderness to escape.

In that disconnect lies the heart of great nature writing. With each passing year there is less of nature and more civilization. Somewhere, deep inside, most people feel a longing to get closer to nature, but don’t have a clue as to how.

That’s why they go to the ever dwindling woods in ever increasing numbers and almost always come back feeling vaguely dissatisfied.  Continue reading...

 

View: Eastatoe Heritage Preserve

FEBRUARY 21, 2011 8:15 a.m. (0)

On a warm winter’s day the trail into Eastatoe Heritage Preserve is one of the most pleasant hikes in Upstate South Carolina; all that’s missing are the wildflowers for which the area is so famous.

Those will be coming soon with the earliest blossoms peeking out from the leaf mold in March.

The 3.2-mile, out and back, hike travels through some spectacular mountain scenery that is hidden by dense foliage at other times of the year. On the first warm weekend in months, with temperatures hovering in the middle 60s, it is a taste of spring to come.  Continue reading...

 

The nature of things

She's a botanist at heart

FEBRUARY 21, 2011 8:01 a.m. (0)

Karen Hall’s path to becoming an ethno-botanist was as twisty as a Smoky Mountain trail.

The 50-year-old professor at Clemson University is a fourth generation native plant enthusiast from Bryson City, N.C., and the first professional botanist in her family.

Hall’s voice still carries hickory-flavored hints of her formative years in the lee of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She was born in California and lived in Texas until she was four when her father retired from the Air Force and returned to her grandparents’ homestead outside of Bryson City.  Continue reading...

 

Where the wild blooms are

MARCH 13, 2011 3:31 p.m. (0)

Spring wildflowers are nature’s gift, a reward for surviving the stark gray days of winter. Starting with the emergence of spring ephemerals beginning around mid-March, moving to showy flowering trees and shrubs in May and June and ending with a wash of goldenrods and asters in September and October, wildflowers paint the landscape of the Upstate and the Carolinas. Here are some spots to consider.

   Continue reading...

 

Right neighborly

Nature photographer Clay Bolt heads international project to highlight wildlife that lives among us

JUNE 16, 2011 11:45 a.m. (0)

Nature photographer Clay Bolt wants Upstate residents to know their neighbors.

Not the neighbors who live in the house next door or across the street or even down the block, but the kind of “neighbors” that call our backyards, parks and other natural spaces home.

Think salamanders, snakes and frogs. Trillium, lady’s slippers and orchids.  Continue reading...

 

Fall color expected to be great, maybe excellent

That’s what leaf peepers have to look forward to this season when the leaves of change make their entrance into the Upstate

OCTOBER 7, 2011 11:22 a.m. (0)

There’s never a bad fall leaf season, according to Caesar’s Head interpretative ranger and naturalist Tim Lee.

There’s always color.

But the intensity differs from year to year.  Continue reading...