June 9, 2015 - Cosby Nature Trail

The mushrooms from Sunday are already brown and now a whole forest of them has popped up next a tree near the toilet building. I wonder if a bunch of mushrooms is called a colony. If so, this is the colony I watched last year with multiple generations. This is clearly a good environment for them even though they are not that close to the toilet building or the septic tank.

Someone was being clever with the remains of a fat log in Site 1 and has burned it from the inside out.

 

Local and regular camper, Windy informed us that we need to be politically correct. He is no longer a hillbilly, but is now an Appalachian American.

Kathy’s one request while here was to go to the Applehouse because she wanted to buy some more stone-ground corn meal in their produce store. We went there for our dinner and enjoyed watching the horses with a youngster out in the orchard while we ate. Kathy bought some more produce and Andy picked up some seedless jam. Then we headed to Cosby campground.

I was aware that Cosby had the nature trail, but never got around to going there to walk on it. It was much prettier than I expected and a lot different than Big Creek, just over the mountain. The trailhead is next to the amphitheatre where we listened to the bluegrass music a few weeks ago.

We crossed many streams, or maybe just a few many times. The path was winding so it was hard to tell. The first crossing was over a stone bridge.

 

Andy did not bring his walking stick today. He did not have any trouble stepping on stones to cross water or on the many log bridges.

 

The path was in a small valley and was mostly level. It felt like a river delta with all the water. I guess it is the Cosby Creek Delta. One time we had streams on both sides of the path. There are only a few large trees there, but the vegetation is lush.

Andy paused to pose for me here.

When I walked across, I stopped to take a picture of the creek below my feet. The water was moving fast.

 

This is the view downstream from that log bridge.

This is a crazy tree trunk. I am tempted to call them roots. I recall that we saw another tree like this over in Sugarlands, near park headquarters the first year we were here. It was in a similar environment with flat land and plenty of water. I’m too lazy to look for the picture to compare them right now.

Kathy pointed out this mushroom tree.

I looked inside this hollow log and decided that it would make a good bed for a bear or some other creature.