38: Vast Middle Emptiness

Green Swamp Preserve, Supply, North Carolina

S U P P L Y,  N C

An expansive web across the trail stops me in my tracks.  In its bulls-eye rests a rather colorful spider.  It’s huge and right at eye-level guardedly staring me down as I begin snapping macro-photos.  When done, I drop to hands and knees in the morning dew to crawl under the web’s splaying support strands so as not to tear down the masterpiece.  The spider’s night of spinning remains safe. 

A few minutes later, I’m standing confused in the middle of a longleaf pine savanna.  I can’t find any trail markers on this path that was only sparsely marked to begin with.  I’ve definitely lost my way, but thanks to it being a moist morning, I retrace my steps back to the spider through the dew wake I’ve created.  Though the spider didn’t catch me in its web, it can at least count a small victory in its ability to throw me off course. 

I’m at The Nature Conservancy’s 17,000 acre Green Swamp in the coastal plains of North Carolina near Lockwoods Folly.  A few years ago I first learned of the vanishing longleaf pine forests which once dominated the southeastern coast of the United States.  Before urban pressures arrived, understories within these forests would regularly and naturally burn, usually as the result of lightning strikes.  The fires cleared the understory allowing sunlight to penetrate through the tall pines to the forest floor.  Here, many beautiful plants would thrive in this unique savanna environment including carnivorous pitcher plants and the famed Venus flytraps which only exist in southeast North Carolina.  But over the past century, man’s fear of fire has led to the suppression of this natural process.  Most forest fires are dampened upon first sight.  At Green Swamp, the Nature Conservancy is fostering the natural understory burn process again.  And if timed right, like I did today, walking through the savanna during a time when the carnivorous plants are thriving is a wonderful experience.

Walking through a longleaf pine forest savanna is much different than other east coast forest walks.  Between the low understory and the high longleaf pine canopy is a vastly middle emptiness interrupted only by towering straight pine trunks.  I stop numerous times to look down into the complex understory.  I fail to spot flytraps but there’s an abundance of pitcher plants, blooming flowers, and knee high wispy wet grasses that nearly hide the trail.  Today’s three-layered walk in the Green Swamp has been like no other walk I’ve ever taken.  Simply a strolling delight. 

As the vague trail begins to fizzle out, I conclude I’ve reached the turn-around spot on this mile and a half path.  I look down and spot a small pine knot lying on the trail.  Presumably, this knot likely was perched high in a pine trunk not long ago with a view over the ever-changing savanna landscape beneath it.  What better keepsake could I have found? 

Better yet though is where I’m heading next – the Nature Conservancy’s Wilmington office to meet with Zach West.  He’s the Conservancy’s land steward for the southeast coastal plains… and he has a key for me.  Yup, he’s giving me the gate key to a private savanna an hour north of Wilmington at a place called Shaken Creek.  He enthusiastically tells me that it’s in even better shape than Green Swamp. 

As I leave Zach’s office, I pull out my wallet, drop some cash on the counter, and tell him his lunch is on me.  He initially declines politely, but I win the gentleman’s showdown and he takes it in the end.  It’s a small gesture of thanks to a man and an organization that has been a big help in allowing me to experience a longleaf pine savanna – an experience that was even better than anticipated.