Top: One of the many tiny streams that trickle across the Beech Gap trail. Incidently, the name Beech Gap trail is a bit misleading. It was once called the Hyatt Bald trail, and IMHO, it should still go by that name. Beech Gap lies on the other side of Straight Fork, high atop the ridge of Balsam Mountain. The trail does serve as a connector between Hyatt Ridge and Beech Gap.

In the photo above, a hollow tree had toppled down the mountainside, landing at the edge of the path and blocking the little stream. The stream now pours through both ends and the center of the log, making a tiny, but beautiful little water garden.

Below: One of the largest red spotted salamanders that I've ever seen in the Smokies. Paul and I spotted it early in the morning at McGee Springs as it crawled down the hillside from the Spring to the stream below. The Great Smoky Mountains have one of the largest variety of salamander species in the world, but they're not doing too well today. The widespread damage wreaked by feral hogs in the Park have been especially destructive to the reptile and amphibian populations. The hogs like to wallow in the headwaters of the cold mountain streams where the salamanders live, and they have a fondness for the taste of nearly anything that crawls, flies, hops, or runs. Acid rain is also believed to be extremely detrimental to the amphibian denizens of the Great Smokies, with some of the highest levels of acidity ever recorded in the southern Appalachians being recorded along the crest of the Smokies range.