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Thursday, January 8, 2015

Beautifully Wild - Jones Gap State Park

Jones Gap seemed a portal whisking me back to my teenage summers spent on Tennessee mountains surrounded by creeks and rhododendron.  The park is the fraternal twin of the stately Caesar’s Head.  While Caesar looks down its nose at such surrounding trifles as Paris Mountain, Lake Jocassee and Table Rock, it would scarce admit the existence of its savage sibling.

Jones Gap isn’t exactly savage but she is certainly a wild child.  She is as free spirited as Caesar’s Head is refined.  Her independence and spirit greet visitors at her parking lot.  She laughs at any who would try to confine her nature.
 
Jones Gap is a lurid pixie who draws company by virtue of her beauty.  She is beautiful with her quiet stream bubbling among rocks, a canopy of trees filtering romantic light amid rhododendron.   And yet, though she is beautiful, she is not tame.
 
Instinctively, you feel her danger.  The place is wild and home to wild things.  Jones Gap is largely undeveloped.  Here we step into the beauty of wilderness untouched and untamed.  You feel it.
I felt it.  My mama sense sent sharp warnings even as my eyes begged my feet to explore this beautiful place.  Ben felt it more than I.  His autism makes his instinct sharper than anyone else’s.  Ben quickly displayed his misgivings.  He looked at Anchor and me with disgust as we beckoned the children out from the minivan.  He protested as we explored the path and crossed the creek to the place where the stamp was.  His behavior was so communicative that we almost left Jones Gap without further exploration.
 
But the wild sprite is vain.  She sent her emissary, a ranger, to serve as a guide.   The ranger noticed our family and greeted us with all the pleasantness and exuberance as if we were the very first guests of the day when in reality he was locking up when he noticed us.  He was so excited to introduce us to his park.  He unlocked the door and bade us take a look at the newly constructed education center.  The ranger had fallen under the siren spell of Jones Gap and was excited to spread his love to all who ventured near.  He spoke to us of the secrets the park held, the vegetation and the creatures.  He educated us as to her history.  He gave the children cups full of trout pellets- not made of trout but food for the trout that were held in the park’s trout pools- and espoused all the secrets that made trout the smartest, most athletic and elitist of fish.  The ranger walked us to a viewing area where we could see the park’s resident copperhead who had taken up permanent residence some distance from the office.  The snake had never bothered anyone and stayed in her place- a watchful guardian of the park.
 
Ben calmed a bit as we threw the pellets to the trout in the pool.  The children wandered as they watched the prowess of the fish fighting and jumping and clamoring for each pellet.  The cups soon emptied but my children’s delight had overflowed into joyous laughter.  Jones Gap smiled through the ranger’s eyes.  He invited us back and sweetened the deal by giving us a map of the latest stretch of the Palmetto Trail featuring a long travail inside the wild beautiful Jones Gap State Park.
 

The sun was now setting and Ben was again becoming agitated.  As we drove out from the canopy, I knew we would return.  We had been infected by the untamed essence of the place.  That knowledge brought me a smile of delight and a shiver of apprehension.

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