With my son, Andy, on a mountaintop in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Just a short hike off of Skyline Drive. This photo was taken in May of 2000, but the weather was quite nippy and the trees had not yet become fully green at this elevation. Shenandoah National Park is one of the most ecologically sick parks I've witnessed in our National Park system. The hardwoods have been devastated by some type of moth, the Park Rangers have had disaster after disaster with "controlled" burning, blackening vast acreage, and developers have been allowed to create urban sprawl around the boundaries of the park. The experience was quite shocking, and very depressing. Also, many of the evergreens in the park appear to be very sick from the effects of acid rain.

This photo was taken by my wife on my 44th birthday on the top of Brasstown Bald, the highest peak in Georgia (my home state). This, and a couple of other very high peaks are the only places in Georgia where Fraser firs are found. This balsam tree was quite large, but you can see that it is beginning to show signs (browning needles) of the same sickness that has killed most of the Fraser firs in the uplands of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The corporate bosses try to tell us that an insect infestation is responsible for killing our native forests, but most of us know that they're dying from the effects of acid rain, caused by the perpetual pumping of sulfur dioxides into our Southern air from the burning of fossil fuels.

Another photo taken by my wife the day before my 44th birthday. This is at one of the hundreds of waterfalls in the Trey Mountain Wilderness Area. I doubt this one even has a name, and is located along a forest service road that leads to a high gap near the peak of Trey Mountain.