Black Balsam
Surrounded by landscapes with trees rolling over the mountaintops in a place where the denseness of the valley foliage matches that of the intricate pine forest mazes of the land above lies a place where one can experience the massive wonders that are the Blue Ridge Mountains - and this place is Black Balsam.
The hike to Black Balsam is a must for anyone spending time on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The hike is only about half a mile, and while almost all of that walk is uphill it goes by almost instantly. Black Balsam is reached via the Art Loeb Trail and provides stunning panoramic views of the Appalachian countryside. The scale really sets in as soon as you exit a scenic pine forest (which is also fantastic for hide and seek, I might add) and your vision grows from having a line-sight of about one-hundred feet at max to what feels like endless miles. It genuinely feels like the edge of the world appeared before your eyes the instant you put the forest behind you. This 180-degree normally opens with gusts of heavy winds that bully you and push you around if you’re not careful. If the massiveness of the mountains bleeding into the horizon didn’t already make me feel small, the force of those winds certainly did, and that was one cool feeling!
Black Balsam isn’t what it always was though. It blended into the countryside as another pine forest throughout, but the abundance of trees made it a popular logging destination. Combine that with some aggressive fires that spread over the countryside due to the wood chips, pine leaves, and other flammable debris left over by those same logging operations, and you get a forest reduced to ash. This can also be observed in the nearby Graveyard Fields just a short drive down from Black Balsam. The alpine climate seriously slows down the growth of new flora, and so out of those fires came the rolling series of grassy mountaintops that include Black Balsam.
As incredible as Black Balsam’s ability to hold off new vegetation is, and as much as I adore the serenity of its open peak, nature will take it back. This means that only so much time exists for us to experience Black Balsam. It’s not going anywhere soon, but one day Black Balsam may very well be saturated with pines once again, and it’s views swallowed up by the canopy above. Enjoy this precious gift before we must give it back.
Adventure On!
-JGM