As Tolkien might have observed portentously in one of his sprawling, Middle-earth sagas, the time of the giants – in this case, the eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) – may be soon coming to an end. These magnificent conifers, so critical to the carbon and hydrologic cycles of Appalachia’s mixed mesophytic forests, are dying in large numbers, killed off by by a double whammy of global warming and an invasive pest from Asia – the hemlock woolly adelgid – barely visible to the naked eye. As these trees become sick and die, the unique ecosystems they support are irreversibly altered. While the Southern Appalachians have
been most heavily impacted to date, the death march of the adelgids continues northward. As I stood in the shadow of the great hemlocks in Cathedral State Park over the weekend, I hoped that this small stand of virgin forest would survive as a testament to their ancient power to transform the world around them – a real magic as special as anything in Tolkien’s imagined universe.
Past, present, and future co-mingle along the Mon River Trail, where moss creeps over scattered heaps of slag, a waste product from the area’s now defunct blast furnaces. As nature softens the scars left by the region’s turbulent, boom-and-bust industrial past, the memories of the people who worked the furnaces also fade into her enveloping, green cloak.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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