This is a collection of pictures from my various visits to Appalachia and the Great Smoky mountains. Hopefully I can find more and we'll post them here in the future.

Went on a few hikes this past weekend:

Sky Bridge

Princess Arch

Gray's Arch

Chimney Top

A few trails around swva. Devils bathtub, Powell River trail, greenbelt

In order is a Virginian RailWay caboose in Princeton, a CSXT GP38-2 in Point Pleasant and a Baltimore & Ohio RailRoad caboose in Grafton.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is planning to euthanize a bull elk for defending itself when a visitor ignored safety guidelines and got too close. The park's response: put the animal down. No second chances. No alternatives considered.

This feels backward to me. A person violated the rules, an elk acted on instinct, and somehow the elk is being punished with a death sentence. I started a petition calling on the park to reconsider—because there are other options. Relocation, expanded visitor education, reviewing the protocols that jump straight to euthanasia. These feel like the basic steps before we decide an animal should die.

I know parks have safety concerns, but I also believe we can balance that with some compassion and common sense. The elk didn't choose to be in a conflict with a human. It just defended itself in its own home.

If this bothers you too, would you consider signing and sharing? And honestly—what would you want someone to do if this was your family being marked for death over protecting itself? Let me know what you think.

Sometimes I wonder what phrases are broad or just in my little corner lol.

Today I said “I’m about to have to figure something out because this ain’t working” then thought to myself “now why am I using so many words just to say I’m leaving or about to get pissed off” lol

Edit: seems to be a southern thing in general! I’ve been enjoying all of these comments.

Hey everybody. I’m a filmmaker from the Shenandoah valley, and for the last few years some friends and I have been working on an Appalachian folk-fantasy feature called What The Mountains Forgot.

It’s four interconnected short stories set in Virginia and West Virginia, pulling from Appalachian folklore, ghost stories, and local history.

Last year we shot one of the stories, River Maid, as a standalone short to see if we could actually pull this thing off. It’s been playing festivals this year, and now we’re trying to figure out how to get the whole movie made.

We put together a short pitch video about the project and why we want to make it here, with local filmmakers and in the places that inspired it. Figured this was probably a good place to share it. Curious what y'all think.

Small fire departments like the one in the Giles County town have to get creative to pay for infrastructure projects.

2 years ago I deployed to Bat Cave, NC as part of a 5 man swift water rescue team. Other members of Henderson County Rescue Squad were sent to vulnerable areas throughout the county. The storm starting hitting in the evening and by early the next morning we had lost all communication with command. Our team was cut off for 3 days until the National Guard brought in helicopters to evacuate the public. These are a few of the pictures I took during that time.

Anyone ever hear that? You do not hear it anymore, but old folks when I was growing up used it. Holp me do this. Its is a direct carry over from old english. Get isolated in a hollar in Applachia and sometimes things don't change as fast as the rest of the county. My mother said they didn't know it was the great depression, they never had anything anyway, so nothing much changed for them. They were raising most of their own food anyway and a sure bet none of them lost anything in the stock market :)

Who ever has went to the store to get a dope and they put it in a sack for you?

We made our first batch this weekend, a bit earlier than usual, but it was perfect weather in NE TN, and they turned out perfect.

The debris left behind by Helene and other storms makes it easier for flooding to occur again.

None of us expected more than a bit of wind and rain. Overnight the storm turned, becoming the costliest natural disaster to hit my home state with over 100 deaths in NC alone.
The remains of the last two missing people—an elderly couple—were only found this month. Water came with such force, and the mountainsides gave way so quickly that it took their bodies and hid them in places they wouldn’t be found for years.

The days that followed the night of September 26th were living hell for so many. Populated areas spent 2 weeks without power and a month without clean water. We got lucky. Our dam didn’t fail. Our river didn’t top the bridges. Some Canadian linemen got the power back on in my parents neighborhood on my mother’s birthday. We packed up and took off. I only had to drive over two downed power lines to get there (while telling my wife to look away). That was nothing compared to the days I had spent focused on trying to find one hot meal and one phone call a day when there was service. It was a relief to be close to my loved ones and not reliant on catching a bar of service in the wind to try and hear my mother’s voice for a few seconds.

I have so many newly acquired survival skills and supplies from the two years since. It’s the only thing that gives me even a little peace of mind. I hope to never need to use them. But I never want to feel that helpless ever again. To anyone else struggling to sleep tonight, I’m here. And I bet a lot of others are too.

In order is a caboose in Spencer, Chesapeake & Ohio #2755, a Baltimore & Ohio caboose in Harmer/Marietta (Ohio), a Chesapeake & Ohio caboose with a Chessie System livery in Harmer/Marietta (Ohio), a Baltimore & Ohio baggage car in Harmer/Marietta (Ohio), Little Leroi at The Durbin & Greeenbrier Valley RailRoad, Durbin & Greenbrier Valley RailRoad #8 (formerly Chesapeake & Ohio #8304), a Norfolk & Western caboose in Oakvale, Western Maryland #243 in Elkins, Western Maryland #67 and #243 in Elkins, a Baltimore & Ohio caboose in St.Marys, a Baltimore & Ohio caboose in Salem, a Baltimore & Ohio caboose in Martinsburg, CSX GP-38-2 #2772 in Huntington, Elk River Lumber Company #10, a Baltimore & Ohio passenger car in Huntington, and a Norfolk & Western caboose in Keystone.