Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Shoals of the Skull

... or rather, of the Scull. (I suppose it has a slightly different meaning when you spell it that way.)

I'm playing a little bit of catch-up with these next few posts, so the pictures will not reflect the weather we're experiencing in the South right now (90 degrees and humid). Consider it a happy little flashback to the Winter of the Polar Vortex.

Anyways, Evan and I ventured down to Scull Shoals, a former mill town, now ghost town located at the very end of a State Forest road. It was quite cold, and the stream through the town was mostly frozen.

There are remnants of the company store, power plant, bridges and foundations, and the chimney of the manager's house. (Fun fact: the manager's well was located just downhill of his outhouse! Hmm.. cholera much?)

There were lots of interesting old trees, and likely some great old variety wildflowers this spring, though we didn't verify that. Something crazy that I saw for the first time ever was a Browse Line: in the following picture, you can see the distinct line in the trees below which there's no greenery left because the deer have eaten it all to that height. This phenomenon was fairly eery for me when I first saw it.

And plenty of lichen for Evan to add to his Wild Man costume, which is perpetually in the works. But more on that another day.