Jefferson
Active member
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2012
- Messages
- 190
- Reaction score
- 28
- Points
- 28
- Location
- Southwest Missouri
- Country
- United States
Note: the videos that accompany this post are on Bethany's channel (theherpinglizard) on YouTube, along with all our US herping content. Due to the length of this post, I'll split it up with corresponding pictures posted beneath each part of the story.
Bethany's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheHerpingLizard.
This summer has been wild to say the least, and I apologize for not posting in a while. I graduated and got married in late May, and then started a new job in early July. To that end, June was book-ended by two trips to North Carolina, one to the mountains and the other to the coast.
After getting married on May 25th, Bethany and I headed down into North Carolina's Appalachians via I-81 south as twilight draped the Virginia hills in orange and blue, and night set in as we crossed into Tennessee at Bristol. From there, we traversed I-26 straight over the crest of the Blue Ridge and into NC, headed to an Airbnb near Hendersonville. After a stop at Cookout, we arrived, the dew clinging to the grass all around the cabin. This was by far the coolest Airbnb we have ever booked--it had a stream, a horse barn, a mountain view, and a practice golf course open to guests. Price: $35 per night. Incredible..
The next morning, we started out just before lunch into the mountains on stomachs filled with pizza in an attempt to find our great white whale: the Eastern Hellbender. Bethany had tracked down a specific locale to see them, tucked into the backcountry. Upon arriving, the stream looked to me like it would be too small to harbor these caudate beasts. Picturesque and clear, sure, but this stream looked more like a Shovelnose hangout than a spot where you'd expect to find 2-foot salamanders. We waded along, looking down at the rippling waters with polarized glasses, and intermittently, with goggles. We did not flip any rocks, as Hellbenders at this locale are active during daylight. For the first hour, we saw nothing. But about noon, we happened upon our beast. At first, it looked only like an oblong rock along the bottom of the stream--so well camouflaged! But looking under the water with goggles brought me face-to-face with our first wild Hellbender! As we photographed the beast and coaxed it into the shallows for better pictures, two rangers watched us from a distance, making sure we didn't plan on taking the Hellbender or holding it. It was reassuring that this site has such enforcement to protect the gorgeous creatures that live there.
After upwards of forty-five minutes of both getting pictures and taking turns looking at it crawl along the bottom with goggles, we kept going upstream. We saw three more Hellbenders in the next two hours, one that swam away as soon as I got underwater to look at it (this one was more tawny/reddish than the others and with larger black spots) and two that were more of a uniform tan color. These last two were seen in a quieter section of the stream, which was conducive to good pictures and video. We left in euphoria, got stuck in a traffic jam coming out of the mountains, and went back to play some golf, relax, and take in what had just happened. It's hard to absorb sometimes when such a monumental goal, like seeing a Hellbender, happens in an instant and then disappears into that amorphous jumble of memories we call "the past." I wonder if presidential candidates feel the same way when they finally win.
Anyhow, after a day of golf and lounging, the next day we headed into a different section of the mountains east of our Airbnb, these ones stony, drier, lower, and rockier. We hiked extensively at one spot, turning up some duskies and a nifty red eft, but nothing of great consequence. We went to a nice Italian restaurant overlooking Lake Lure and the surrounding mountains for dinner, and then night-herped from there. Our quarry was threefold: Carolina Green Salamander, Bat Cave variant of the Yonahlossee, and Blue Ridge Gray-cheeked. At our first stop, we found nothing but a lone Copperhead at twilight, but at a much smaller rockface with a garbage-like smell (from some trash deposited below it by locals, and I had joked all day that we'd get all three at "El Dumpo"), we started to have some luck.
Due to its bad smell and small size, we jokingly called the spot "El Dumpo," and it was a running joke of mine that we'd actually see all three there. After ten minutes, my flashlight hit something that didn't quite look like the moss around it. Could it be? It was. The figure of a baby Green Salamander, more yellowish than the ones I remember seeing in Alabama. This is a population isolated from the main TN/KY/WV/PA/AL/GA group, and has been in the works as a separate species for years. I am unaware of what the new common name for this isolated NC/SC population will be, but "Carolina Green" sounds reasonable enough to me. Five minutes later, we saw an adult of the same species. I was getting very excited, and by the time we spied a Blue Ridge Gray-cheek ten yards away crawling up the rock, I lost all composure. It was a mixture of uproarious laughter and joy, which only grew when Bethany rounded out our trifecta by finding a Bat Cave Yonahlossee. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. Thirty yards of rockface, four salamanders, three lifers. The cookout milkshakes tasted sweeter than any I'd ever had. A photo on the wall gave us a good chuckle. The image of a bear poking his head into a tent said, "Your tent is surrounded. I'm here to negotiate the terms of your surrender."
The next day, we played a little more golf and set off for the west, bound eventually for the ever-welcoming embrace of the Great Smokies and their immediate environs. Along the way, we stopped at a few little state parks and nature preserves, seeing a mountain pond full of newts, some duskies, and a snapping turtle. Climbing high into the mountains near Highlands brought the temperatures back down below 90 degrees, and I repeatedly thanked Bethany for talking me out of Florida as our destination. It would have been over 100!! In Southwest North Carolina, nothing much of herpetological note happened. North Carolina had been in drought, and due to that fact, when we tried to look for more traditional Plethodon in the woodlands, we had no luck. The leaf litter, even up at 4500' and above, was dry as cotton. However, staying on the NC side of the Smokies is always a nice treat regardless of salamander luck, and this time was no exception.
The area around Robbinsville had many signs for upcoming Cherokee tribal elections, and I wonder how those elections take place. Is there negative campaigning? Campaign contributions? Debates? So many unanswered questions. We tried unsuccessfully for Cheoah Bald and struck out with Junaluska and Shovelnose (though we did see a Watersnake catch a fish while looking for D. marmoratus), but had a great time at restaurants and just hiking with each other, before heading into Tennessee. After taking the Cherohala Skyway into SE Tennessee and listening to the brakes begin to squeak (which is disconcerting at 6000'), we tried for Junaluska and Tellico once more at low elevation and visited a few waterfalls, just passing the time sitting on the rivers' edge. We waited until twilight to shine some rockfaces, but found nothing that night except one juvenile Copperhead. With that, we headed into the valley along I-75. The next morning, we got our car repaired at a small shop where I read a book about Mikhail Gorbachev (an unlikely place for that book to be sure), and then we headed back to Virginia. But on the way, we stopped in extreme Southwest Virginia, at the very edge of Shovelnose range, to try one more time for the most elusive desmog in the East. And we were not disappointed.
As afternoon wore on and storm clouds rolled in from our west, a gurgling mountain stream feeding a trout river, about ten feet wide and a foot deep, yielded Bethany's coveted Shovelnose. The trick was that one person would flip a large rock in the stream's center, and the other would hold the net down to the bottom of the stream in front of it. Shovlnose, unlike other desmogs in Appalachia, actually prefer being in several inches of water or more, and make hay by eating the aquatic invertebrates on the undersides of rocks. Thus, you can't find them just by rock-flipping on the edge, and rock-flipping in water a foot deep that's moving is futile--you'll never see a four-inch, rock colored-salamander wash downstream. It was a gorgeous little desmog, with the classic dark brown and gold coloration and lethargic movements. What a nice drive back to the Shenandoah Valley. We thought that our travels were over until our move to Missouri, and that we'd have the next five weeks to settle in as a couple. As it turns out, we were wrong. Pictures will be posted below, and please read the next installment of the post. I hope you enjoy the story, and happy herping!
Bethany's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheHerpingLizard.
This summer has been wild to say the least, and I apologize for not posting in a while. I graduated and got married in late May, and then started a new job in early July. To that end, June was book-ended by two trips to North Carolina, one to the mountains and the other to the coast.
After getting married on May 25th, Bethany and I headed down into North Carolina's Appalachians via I-81 south as twilight draped the Virginia hills in orange and blue, and night set in as we crossed into Tennessee at Bristol. From there, we traversed I-26 straight over the crest of the Blue Ridge and into NC, headed to an Airbnb near Hendersonville. After a stop at Cookout, we arrived, the dew clinging to the grass all around the cabin. This was by far the coolest Airbnb we have ever booked--it had a stream, a horse barn, a mountain view, and a practice golf course open to guests. Price: $35 per night. Incredible..
The next morning, we started out just before lunch into the mountains on stomachs filled with pizza in an attempt to find our great white whale: the Eastern Hellbender. Bethany had tracked down a specific locale to see them, tucked into the backcountry. Upon arriving, the stream looked to me like it would be too small to harbor these caudate beasts. Picturesque and clear, sure, but this stream looked more like a Shovelnose hangout than a spot where you'd expect to find 2-foot salamanders. We waded along, looking down at the rippling waters with polarized glasses, and intermittently, with goggles. We did not flip any rocks, as Hellbenders at this locale are active during daylight. For the first hour, we saw nothing. But about noon, we happened upon our beast. At first, it looked only like an oblong rock along the bottom of the stream--so well camouflaged! But looking under the water with goggles brought me face-to-face with our first wild Hellbender! As we photographed the beast and coaxed it into the shallows for better pictures, two rangers watched us from a distance, making sure we didn't plan on taking the Hellbender or holding it. It was reassuring that this site has such enforcement to protect the gorgeous creatures that live there.
After upwards of forty-five minutes of both getting pictures and taking turns looking at it crawl along the bottom with goggles, we kept going upstream. We saw three more Hellbenders in the next two hours, one that swam away as soon as I got underwater to look at it (this one was more tawny/reddish than the others and with larger black spots) and two that were more of a uniform tan color. These last two were seen in a quieter section of the stream, which was conducive to good pictures and video. We left in euphoria, got stuck in a traffic jam coming out of the mountains, and went back to play some golf, relax, and take in what had just happened. It's hard to absorb sometimes when such a monumental goal, like seeing a Hellbender, happens in an instant and then disappears into that amorphous jumble of memories we call "the past." I wonder if presidential candidates feel the same way when they finally win.
Anyhow, after a day of golf and lounging, the next day we headed into a different section of the mountains east of our Airbnb, these ones stony, drier, lower, and rockier. We hiked extensively at one spot, turning up some duskies and a nifty red eft, but nothing of great consequence. We went to a nice Italian restaurant overlooking Lake Lure and the surrounding mountains for dinner, and then night-herped from there. Our quarry was threefold: Carolina Green Salamander, Bat Cave variant of the Yonahlossee, and Blue Ridge Gray-cheeked. At our first stop, we found nothing but a lone Copperhead at twilight, but at a much smaller rockface with a garbage-like smell (from some trash deposited below it by locals, and I had joked all day that we'd get all three at "El Dumpo"), we started to have some luck.
Due to its bad smell and small size, we jokingly called the spot "El Dumpo," and it was a running joke of mine that we'd actually see all three there. After ten minutes, my flashlight hit something that didn't quite look like the moss around it. Could it be? It was. The figure of a baby Green Salamander, more yellowish than the ones I remember seeing in Alabama. This is a population isolated from the main TN/KY/WV/PA/AL/GA group, and has been in the works as a separate species for years. I am unaware of what the new common name for this isolated NC/SC population will be, but "Carolina Green" sounds reasonable enough to me. Five minutes later, we saw an adult of the same species. I was getting very excited, and by the time we spied a Blue Ridge Gray-cheek ten yards away crawling up the rock, I lost all composure. It was a mixture of uproarious laughter and joy, which only grew when Bethany rounded out our trifecta by finding a Bat Cave Yonahlossee. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. Thirty yards of rockface, four salamanders, three lifers. The cookout milkshakes tasted sweeter than any I'd ever had. A photo on the wall gave us a good chuckle. The image of a bear poking his head into a tent said, "Your tent is surrounded. I'm here to negotiate the terms of your surrender."
The next day, we played a little more golf and set off for the west, bound eventually for the ever-welcoming embrace of the Great Smokies and their immediate environs. Along the way, we stopped at a few little state parks and nature preserves, seeing a mountain pond full of newts, some duskies, and a snapping turtle. Climbing high into the mountains near Highlands brought the temperatures back down below 90 degrees, and I repeatedly thanked Bethany for talking me out of Florida as our destination. It would have been over 100!! In Southwest North Carolina, nothing much of herpetological note happened. North Carolina had been in drought, and due to that fact, when we tried to look for more traditional Plethodon in the woodlands, we had no luck. The leaf litter, even up at 4500' and above, was dry as cotton. However, staying on the NC side of the Smokies is always a nice treat regardless of salamander luck, and this time was no exception.
The area around Robbinsville had many signs for upcoming Cherokee tribal elections, and I wonder how those elections take place. Is there negative campaigning? Campaign contributions? Debates? So many unanswered questions. We tried unsuccessfully for Cheoah Bald and struck out with Junaluska and Shovelnose (though we did see a Watersnake catch a fish while looking for D. marmoratus), but had a great time at restaurants and just hiking with each other, before heading into Tennessee. After taking the Cherohala Skyway into SE Tennessee and listening to the brakes begin to squeak (which is disconcerting at 6000'), we tried for Junaluska and Tellico once more at low elevation and visited a few waterfalls, just passing the time sitting on the rivers' edge. We waited until twilight to shine some rockfaces, but found nothing that night except one juvenile Copperhead. With that, we headed into the valley along I-75. The next morning, we got our car repaired at a small shop where I read a book about Mikhail Gorbachev (an unlikely place for that book to be sure), and then we headed back to Virginia. But on the way, we stopped in extreme Southwest Virginia, at the very edge of Shovelnose range, to try one more time for the most elusive desmog in the East. And we were not disappointed.
As afternoon wore on and storm clouds rolled in from our west, a gurgling mountain stream feeding a trout river, about ten feet wide and a foot deep, yielded Bethany's coveted Shovelnose. The trick was that one person would flip a large rock in the stream's center, and the other would hold the net down to the bottom of the stream in front of it. Shovlnose, unlike other desmogs in Appalachia, actually prefer being in several inches of water or more, and make hay by eating the aquatic invertebrates on the undersides of rocks. Thus, you can't find them just by rock-flipping on the edge, and rock-flipping in water a foot deep that's moving is futile--you'll never see a four-inch, rock colored-salamander wash downstream. It was a gorgeous little desmog, with the classic dark brown and gold coloration and lethargic movements. What a nice drive back to the Shenandoah Valley. We thought that our travels were over until our move to Missouri, and that we'd have the next five weeks to settle in as a couple. As it turns out, we were wrong. Pictures will be posted below, and please read the next installment of the post. I hope you enjoy the story, and happy herping!