Hello, Great Smoky Mountains

Okay, good. I'm going to grab a trucking pole. It's our last day in the great Smoky Mountains. And we've spent more time here than in any other park. Four full days. Alrighty. Here you go. It's early, maybe 7am, a gorgeous day in June. I'm basically feeling like a superhero right now. Alright, see ya! Thank you! I waved to Jonathan and leave for the Alamcove Trail. I'm planning to hike to the top of Mt. LaCon. The third highest peak in the park. I mean, I've been wanting to hike by myself this entire trip. Remember when I tried in Big Bend and turned back like five seconds in the fresh bear poo? Anyway, it's kind of an hour never. And I'm finally feeling like I got this. Is the trail head this way? Oh, that way. Okay. It's sort of roots around. Oh, cool. I've met so many amazing people in this park. And I feel like all of them are kind of in my mind as I start the hike. Which is great because this trail at 7am is pretty deserted. I notice a woman in the parking lot because I'm me. I decide to make her my friend. You hike by yourself a lot? I do. Yeah. I've been going out on the national park so sometimes I go out. My new friend is in her 50s. She is piercing blue eyes and salt and pepper hair. More salt and pepper for sure. It's tied back into a ponytail that sits inside the hood of her white rain jacket. She tells me about how she wants to visit all the national parks before she dies. How she's been on hikes alone in some of the most dangerous spots in Alaska. We hike together for a bit. And then I have to take off my jacket. You guys can go ahead if you want. Yeah, I'll probably catch it. I stop for a second. It's the first time I'm actually alone. I know I'm not supposed to, but I lift a tiny rock to see if there's a salamander under it. Oh no, it's so fast. It's really fast. They're all really, oh no, it's still going. How do I, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, how do I get it? Before yesterday, I'd never even seen a salamander. I saw my first one with Tyler Gonzalez. He even convinced me to catch it. I want to say try this rock. So I got into a cold stream, ankle deep. I can't believe what I'm doing this. And started chasing crazy fast salamanders and tried not to slip. All right, buddy. I need you to just like come in and just get in. It's okay. This is your new home. No, it's gone. Tyler works for the great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. I got all these. You know that these are his little things. And he's all about teaching people how to nature. Pine, pine, pine needles. Pine needles. We're in a pine. And he has such cool teacher vibes. Like when I ask him something that he doesn't know the answer to, he shrugs his shoulders like a cartoon. And he goes, let's find out together. It's very sweet. That's a good question. Any ideas? The sun. Mainly the sun. Nailed it. He wants people to be hyped about the outdoors and says it's not hard to get them excited. Just follow these three steps. Step one. Extend an invitation. So I invite you to come with me through the Smokies. This is Hello Nature from R.I. Co-op Studios. Brought to you by Subaru. I'm your host, Misha Yusuf. This episode, I'm in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Land of the Cherokee. So step two. Actually go outside. We're actually going to do it. We're going to get out there and experience this place and the plants and the animals and the dirt and the soil. We're going to get bugbed and we're going to get dirty and we're going to get sweaty. And it might be uncomfortable. But we're going to see something new we've never seen before. Let me try to look a little bit closer and learn about it. This is literally the most biodiverse national park. It's rimming with animals, insects, trees, plants, green rivers. It's always nice to get a hike in. The frog croaks are fighting with the bird's song. It's like I'm stuck at a traffic light between competing sound system. The frogs win unfortunately. As of September 2019, there are 20,000 documented species in this park. 20,000 dude and scientists keep finding new ones. Los Angeles where I'm from only has 4,000 species. This park has range. It also has an insane amount of salamanders. There are 30 different types of salamanders in the park. Salamander capital of the world. Tyler is a pro though. He has a special permit that allows him to catch salamanders for research and education purposes. This is not something that you should do on your own. You could mess up the salamanders and their homes and end and end. It's literally illegal. So we're pulling out some of our salamandering supplies. I brought a bunch of different stuff that was going to help us catch and learn about salamanders. Tyler started unloading his backpack, taking out all kinds of salamandering equipment. We have, let's see, a dissolved oxygen kit. You can kind of detect how much dissolved oxygen is in the water. pH, do you remember pH? Yeah, we got pH. Little laser thermometer. But then he had to explain to me what we were even looking for. Turns out a salamander is an amphibian. So it's kind of like a lizard looking dude that needs water. He stuck a fake plastic salamander in the water and showed us how he would catch it. So you'll get your salamander catching device. And we have this beautiful stream right here. You'll kind of get down low in the stream and try to encourage the salamander to go into the bag. They do not bite. And we just want to try not to like grab them because they're pretty susceptible to like pollutants and stuff like that and maybe even like bug spray if you have like a lotion or something. And then he handed me a bag. And you're not going to do one first. I think you should go for it. No, I feel like that's. I think you got it. Okay, I have to go all the way into the bottom area. Yes. How do I know what to do though? You haven't done it. I showed you. You got this. Okay, not going to lie when Tyler said step two of how to nature was doing the thing. I thought he would do the thing like he would show us where to find salamanders, maybe catch one and do a sort of show and tell you know. But no. Where are you buddy? There's something. There's a crayfish. Oh my god. That's so scary looking. You can pick that up. Yeah. After what felt like forever, but was probably more like five minutes. I did catch one. It's a really little one. I think I have a larva, right? We have to take a little bit closer look, even if it's small, it could still be an adult. I mean, it looks like a mini snake. Okay. It has like a little sneaky legs. How does it make you face? Snaky legs. You found one. Is it a big one? I'm going to blow right past the fact that snakes don't have visible legs, but I stand by what I said. It looks like one. It's long and skinny and kind of blackish brown color. Like imagine if the mud sprouted eyes and started slithering around. And no, the mud is not about to start talking. I drink water today. Anyway, as it turns out, these sneaky looking things can tell us how healthy the ecosystem is. Salamanders are extremely sensitive to environmental changes. So if there are too few or too many of them, it's a good sign that something is out of whack. There's sort of like a canary and a coal mine. And because salamanders are so important, of course we are killing them left and right. If I learned anything on my parks road trip, it's that humans are great at eliminating things that are helpful to the ecosystem. And really across the country and the world and Vivian populations, especially have been like going down and down and down a lot. There's a lot of things going on. Just habitat loss. There's no place for salamanders to live. because development or other issues. right and invasive species, you know, as people move around the world as much as we do, we bring other viruses and bacteria and funguses and things that like kill other native species, you know, so we have a big invasive problem. I kept thinking about the wolves in Yellowstone and the bats in mammoth cave without knowing it, I've entered step three of how to nature. Share and reflect on that experience. I didn't care about salamanders before this very moment. It's hard to care about something that you didn't even know existed, but now that I know about them and looked one straight in the eye, I do care. More than that, I'm having fun. I splashed around in a stream and I caught a salamander basically all by myself. Damn Tyler, those three steps really work. Yeah let's walk up here. There's a really cool if you don't want to go on a trail, we need to kill this one. Oh my god see, I needed you guys here. I would have definitely gone off trail. Wow, reflected so hard, I almost left the trail. Where are you guys from? Oh amazing. Oh I love Knoxville. We spent only a night there. I might, I might it's beautiful. Step one to getting people to move to Knoxville, extend an invitation. Okay. Thank you. What was your name again? Bob. Bob and Roger, Misha. Nice to meet you guys. You just shrug on. Yeah, I'll keep going. I will. Turn back around. Thank you. Thank God for my grandpa friends. Last thing I need is to get lost on my first ever solo hike. Wow, this part of the trail is really empty. No one else here. Just me. Pretty crazy. It's chilly but perfect weather for hiking. It keeps me from overheating even though I've been hiking for like three hours. I'll slip. I'm back on the trail now and I take in how pretty Alamcova is. A running stream, a giant rock cove, foresty trails that lead you up to the mountain. Pretty purple flowers too. On both sides of me. This forest is so dense I keep forgetting that I'm in a mountain range. Like I can't see the forest for the trees vibes. And then suddenly, I find myself on top of a mountain and there are layers and layers of mountains in front of me. Wow. So pretty. Like an impressionist painting. Blues and indigos. The mountains look like they're made of smoke. Just blurs in the distance, lit by the orange of the sunset. It's exactly the kind of landscape Michelle Johnson was talking to me about an arch is. The dense wooded forests that have a painful history in the south especially. Of racism. Of lynching. They're filled with trauma and grief. Ghosts of hatred. It's so quiet. Just me and the hum of bugs that gather around me in clouds once in a while. The breeze is rustling through the thick leaves. It's quiet enough to hear the history. I'm thinking about the history of this land and about my history. The Misha who started this trip. The one who was scared to pitch a tent. And who was forced to pitch one in the dark on her very first night. The one who used to have panic attacks driving. And who has driven at least a few thousand miles on this road trip. The one who was afraid of being noticed for not knowing. For being different. The one who thought there was a right American way to do camping. I'm not that person anymore. I mean, I still hate bugs. I don't want to go dance around with the bears, but I'm out here alone doing something that I turned back from just three weeks ago. And okay, so this is one of the busiest trails in the Smokies. But there are large chunks of this hike where I'm all by myself. And the truth is that I don't really feel alone. I have the courage to do this because of all of the people who have walked this path before me. I mean, this literal trail, but also the indigenous people who've done so much work to protect this land. And the people of color who are showing people like me that we're welcome here. [Music] Whenever I go into the National Park, I always come out better than when I went in. Cash is cash is super intended of the Smokies. It basically means he oversees everything that happens in the park. To say it's a lot of work is an understatement. The Great Smokie Mountains is a half million acres that's more than twice the size of Chicago. And Cash's takes care of the park's visitors, the staff, the infrastructure, and the environment. And on top of all of this, he is trying to make the Smokies more diverse and inclusive. I took this platform and used this as my niche to say, you know, why can't we talk about where we're as a country with diversity in one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world here? Cash's was a city kid. He grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. You know, you didn't see Smokie the Bear walking down Beel Street. It was about barbecue and blues, right? His outdoor education came from Boy Scouts and TV shows. But it's not like he was so inspired by these things that he had to join the park service. My dad is a retired police officer. I used to love how he helped people write. But what really drew me is how he would help families, you know, that's when people started talking about community policing. He was the epitome of that. My mom is a retired cosmetologist, but she just didn't do hair. She specialized in working on wigs for young kids that were about to undergo chemotherapy treatments at St. Jude's there in Memphis. That was very influential to me from my parents. He joined the National Park Service in 2010, and in 2015, he became superintendent of the Smokies. He's the first African-American person to lead the park. I'm definitely a minority among superintendents, and particularly of the big parks, you know, I'm the only African-American superintendent of the larger known parks throughout the country. One of Cache's goals as superintendent of the Smokies is to start meaningful conversations around race, equity, and social justice. And one of his recent projects was inspired by what he was going through in the summer of 2020. So let's go back because I have to give you context on the mindset I was in when I came up with this idea here. So if COVID taught us nothing else, we know a lot about viruses now, and we know the more so than importance of mental and emotional health. And so that was having this weight on me as just a regular person. And then when George Floyd happened, that was a flash point. Then you had Brianna Taylor. Then you had a Mont Arbery in George. I mean, these were things that were happening like within a week's period of time, and it really bothered me. Cache's did what he normally does when he needs to think. He took a solo hike in the park. And so as I was gaining clarity through this hike, I said to myself, oh my god, you know, wouldn't this be a gift to others that are going through the same thing in the community I live and the people that I love? He recruited a bunch of people who work on racial equity, especially in the outdoors. And he asked them to lead guided hikes in the park. People would sign up knowing that at some point during the hike, they're going to talk about race. I always say that the National Park Service is a unique organization because it's one of few that evolves with America's consciousness. With America's storytellers and we are the entity that talks about everything dating back from slavery to LGBTQ issues or to say to Chavez, migrant workers and unionizing. And I felt that I had the license to do this because not only in African-American but on the son of a police officer, right? And that's what that's what was happening, right? And so those things, you know, came together in a way that my soul said that this is something I could possibly do and really maximize this platform that I have because I won't have it forever. And I want to make sure that not only did I leave the park better than I found it, but did I also have an opportunity to make my community better. The project is called Smokey's Hikes for Healing. Between August and December of 2020, he and the facilitators led eight guided hikes. Did you see anybody have any kind of like emotional response during the hikes for healing? Well, there were plenty of tears being in that place does something for you and to you. And so there were many times that people were quite emotional and I think just been in that environment and allowing you your soul to be free to talk about something that people never had the platform to talk about. That was another common thing too is that people never have been in places where they could feel safe to talk about that. I never forget those hikes. I never forget those individuals and these strangers will start out, you know, giving your name and what your hobbies are. And by the end of that hike, you have people hugging, you have people exchanging addresses and phone numbers. And that was always my vision for this because you can't take a couple hikes and fix a 400 year, a 500 year piece of history in this country. But you can chip at that boulder one individual at a time and sometimes you need that buddy or those buddies to have to get to those crucial conversations. I had committed to doing eight hikes. I thought it was enough to jumpstart and when you go to the web page for Smokers Hikes for Hillin, it has materials that if you wanted to do this, we have tools on there how you can lead your own hike if you want to do it. But now this year the park service national level has adopted this program and they're going to be doing it at different parks throughout the country. It's our four. My body is screaming at me. I think maybe a hundred times about quitting. I thought I wasn't shaped but apparently I'm not. And then I see another elderly man pass me. Yeah another elderly man. Then a parent with a kid's draft to their back zips uphill like a pro athlete. I guess you're good. Oh my god. I'm like if I don't have like the hottest quads on the planet after this. Yeah I'll never do another hike again. And I tell myself you got this you can do this. I can hike up a mountain as a 28 year old healthy woman if cash is cash and everyone working with him can make the Smokies the most inclusive national park I've seen so far. Think about it. This park borders Tennessee, South Carolina, West Virginia, places that used to be Confederate states. You know mammoth cave is a park where it felt like the history was there. You can find out quite a bit about Stephen Bishop. And Jerry is there telling people his family story but it all feels like it's still buried underground hidden behind overgrown woodland. You have to look for it and not everyone wants to venture out there alone. But here in the Smokies it's a totally different story. There's a program here called the African American Experience Project. Antoine Fletcher is in charge of it. He leads a team of people who are finding burial sites all over the park. What you're looking at here is the Enlose Cemetery. It's one of many African American cemeteries here. As you see here in this shade it's spot today. Sun just glimmering just a little bit through the trees. And what we have is troughs or amounts of dirt. And what we think is someone came in years later when a grave collapsed. If you ever try to, well I won't say that. If you ever dig a hole in the Smokies you go down a couple of feet it gets really rocky at times it places. And so these graves most likely collapsed. Someone brought dirt and put it in over it. So you'll see these hills here, these mounds, these troughs beside them. And what you're seeing here is eight burials. Possibly a couple of coffins here. And we've been able to see that through ground pitotraining radar. Something else that you're seeing is really important that we see from time to time or pieces like pennies, change things like that in African culture. What was believed is you needed money to get to the afterlife. So this pays the toll. And other things were left behind by people that really loved them. So you may have cups left behind with holes in them. So other people won't use them. Spoons broken in half. Things like that showing that these people were people and shouldn't be invisible, right? And the one thing you really want to ask yourself is who were these people? Let's kind of step back a little bit and take about what the journey was like on a transit landed slave trade. You know millions of people brought over here on a four month journey. They went into places like Memphis, Charleston, South Carolina, New Orleans and things like that. These big slave ports. And after that sold in the slavery, walking into the smokies. Slavery in the smokies was different than it was in Charleston, South Carolina. First you have to look at the mountains themselves. Okay. So in this area, what you have is a different type of plantation, a mountain plantation. Usually mountain plantations that was really doing well had maybe 12 slaves. But also they weren't growing, you know, the end of go, the rice that was being grown in other places. This was more of a livestock plantation. They would run livestock drives throughout the mountains to places like Asheville. And you know, what people don't understand as well as that there were a lot of enslaved people. Not only in the mountains, but around America, especially in the South and Northeast, did would go to a place like that. I leave North Carolina go to Virginia to sell goods on their own. But still you're not free. You can easily be found. And so that's in the smokies. That's what slavery most likely would have looked like. And so this is just a regular mountain burial right here. Now there's a mix of reasons why these burials are here like this. Insane people, African Americans really wanted their privacy when it came to burials or graveyards. It was tough though slave owners did not like them to have their privacy. A lot of times they would actually act as the pastor instead of an enslaved person bringing in their own pastor and things like that. And so a lot of times enslaved people would bury their loved ones on a property like this back of the woods away from a log and road, things like that. So they could come back in peace. And a lot of times they buried their people in the middle of the night as well. However, if a slave or did have a burial ground for his enslaved people, then a lot of times it was like this out in the middle of nowhere in the woods away from anything. And you know that just kind of speaks to how it was back then. That's why you will see African American burial grounds far away. It's history that's literally buried. And it's not only buried here but also in our history. I mean it's kind of there. You kind of heard of it but you don't really know about it. And I think this project is going to shed a light on that. When you're standing at this cemetery, we may never know who these people are. However, we can construct the history around them and it's the mission of the service to preserve and protect. these lands and with me preserving becomes preserving these stories. The park has been working with the NASA Park Service as a whole to compile these stories. The idea eventually very soon is to have information that people can read on a panel and they can come up here and pay respect or just be educated of what this gravesite means to this park. I think that so many more people want to learn these stories and so many more people are actually just facing this tough history and you know we can learn a lot from it. [Music] I'm definitely feeling some altitude sickness. I am at the top. Yeah all my friends are here. Hi. How are you? Good. We are literally at the top of the smokies. Oh my gosh. Those blurry mountain peaks that look like a painting. They are now only a few feet away. Whoa. Oh my gosh. And up here there's an edge with jagged rocks where people are sitting eating all kinds of things. One guy is literally making tacos. I can't believe you're making full-blown tacos right now. That is next one. I'm so glad to be with all of these people. Hi. I couldn't find the highlight. Could I ask you guys to see a photo of me? Please. Oh my gosh. Thank you. You're happy too. You know I'm not afraid to be alone. Not in the way some people fear sitting with their own thoughts. I mean I learned about the national parks while on a silent meditation retreat. Remember? But I do feel like I've been caught up in the romance of solitude and wilderness. Like John Meer saying, to sit in solitude, to think in solitude with only the music of the stream and the cedar to break the flow of silence. There lies the value of wilderness. Maybe he needed that. But I'm realizing that part of doing nature on my own terms is accepting that I don't. I don't. I want to experience these beautiful things with the beautiful people in my life. I like making friends wherever I go. I like not just feeling welcome but welcoming others. I'd rather be a pack wolf than a lone wolf. I sit with my fitness instructor looking friends. The sweet seameers from Knoxville Oh my gosh. The lady whom I met in the parking lot. You kept me company at the beginning. Gave me the courage to do it. A family from Wisconsin who offer me snacks. Yeah. Who is it that Chris McAnlis said in Into the Wild? Happiness is only real when shared. [Music] It's our last night in the Smokies, around 10 pm. Right by our campsite there's a trail that leads to a little clearing. Jake's Creek Trail. Jonathan and I follow all the families with red head lamps and folding chairs into the forest. I accidentally flashed the white light on my phone and all of a sudden the forest looks scary. Dents like I'm in a horror movie or something. I desperately turn it off. And then twinkly little fireflies. At first they're only a couple. One twinkles and then another one. And then they start to flash together. Like a wave of light that triggers another wave of light. We get deeper into the rows of the trees. We notice people are sitting on their folding chairs just staring into the forest. That's what they brought those for. The fireflies are putting on a show. And it's magic. Thousands and thousands of rows of twinkles. Like synchronized swimmers. I finally understand what Stephen Hummel said at Big Bend. Let your eyes adjust to the darkness. Because when you flash a bright light into the darkness, it's scary. Your aloneness, your fears stare right back at you. But when you let your eyes adjust to the darkness, you see fireflies. Watching this dance, I think about what the smokies is doing right. It's a park that's filled with people who aren't just trying to shine a bright white light into the darkness. They're taking your hand and walking with you into the forest. And when you think about the history of this land and feel overwhelmed by the pain, they squeeze your hand and say, yes, but I'm here with you. You have to allow people to see themselves in the story. And the more we do that, I just have a strong suspicion that a lot of more people are going to see themselves than what we call America's best ideal. Hello nature from REI Co-op Studios is brought to you by Subaru. It's produced by DelSite Productions. I'm your host and executive producer Misha Yusa. Our executive editor is Arwen Nix. Jonathan Shiflett is the senior producer. Elizabeth McHano is the producer. Francesca Diaz is assistant producer. Ariana R. Blee provided additional production help. This episode was written by Elizabeth McHano, me and Arwen Nix. It was sound designed by Elizabeth McHano. Valentino Rivera is the senior engineer. Carly Bond is the composer. Elizabeth Goodspeed is our art director and designer and did our artwork for the series. The illustrations on the artwork are by Joshua Areza. Special thanks to Rachel Garcia, our development and operations coordinator at DelSite and apprentice Matthew Lye. From REI Co-op Studios, executive producers are Chelsea Davis, Joe Crosby and Paolo Matola. Kyrsa Berg is the podcast production intern.