A view of Deep Creek valley, with Short Beech Ridge on the left and Rocky Fork Ridge on the right. The Nantahala Mountains, outside the Great Smokies, stand high agains the horizon. This is a wider view of the drainage than we had in the previous page. The dark trees on the slopes below are mostly hemlock, with a few white pines in the lower elevations. The hemlocks are dying out fast as the hemlock adelgid wreaks havoc on the health of one of the most impressive and important trees in the Great Smoky Mountains. In many parts of the Deep Creek drainage, nearly all of the mature hemlocks have already died, opening up the forest floor to the drying rays of the sun. The effects of the loss of such an important part of the Smokies ecosystem is still being studied, but we already know that the impact will be wide-ranging and catastrophic. It's possible that it may spell the end of a healthy trout population in many of the streams, since the trout depend on cold water to survive, and without the shade of the tall hemlock, the temps in many streams will be sure to rise.
Our local congressman, Charles "Chainsaw" Taylor, of Brevard, North Carolina, felt that the Park only needed a few hundred thousand dollars to fight the hemlock adelgids, even though losing the battle will have a huge economic and ecological impact on the southeast. However, he has pledged to push through a monument to porkbarrel politics, the North Shore Road, at a projected cost of nearly $600 million.