UT's Energy, Environment
and Resources Center Presents
Smoky Mountain
Resource Issues in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
SIGHTLINE
FALL/WINTER 2002
Vol. 3 No. 2
***
Editor: David Brill; Assistant Editor: Constance Griffith; Writers: Kris Christen, Lisa Byerley Gary, Elise LeQuire, Dennis McCarthy, and Becky Nichols. Graphic Designer: Lisa Byerley Gary.
SIGHTLINE is published on behalf of
Great Smoky Mountains National
Park
by the
Energy, Environment and Resources
Center (EERC)
at the
University of Tennessee.
EERC conducts research designed to promote real-world solutions to problems in the fields of energy, environment, technology, and economic development.
For additional information, write EERC, 311 Conference Center Building, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, call 865-974-4251, or visit our Web site at http://eerc.ra.utk.edu.
SIGHTLINE is sponsored by:
and
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Bald Is Beautiful
The
open, windswept balds of the Smokies are among hikers’ favorite
destinations, but the origin of these unique mountain environments remains
a mystery.
Over the years, the National Park Service has managed such challenges as endangered species, exotic pest plants, and insect infestations in our national parks. Even beautiful open meadows and wetlands present management problems. But perhaps one of the most unusual challenges facing Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) is the high, grassy balds that most Smokies’ visitors have never even heard of.
The balds are unique because they are largely devoid of trees and other woody vegetation where one would normally expect to see a continuation of the surrounding forest. The forests of Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) harbor more than a dozen grassy balds, which have historically presented a resource management challenge for the Park.
Such balds are generally found on rounded domes and gently sloping ridgelines from just under 5,000 to about 6,000 feet, from the central Virginia Shenandoahs on down through the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. Although some grassy mountain areas exist outside the Southern Appalachians, the plant communities of the Southern Appalachian balds makes them unique.
Two main types of balds occur in the Southern Appalachians: grassy balds, meadows historically blanketed in mountain oat and other native grasses, ferns, sedges, and forbs (herbs that are not grasses); and shrub or heath balds, primarily comprising evergreen laurel and rhododendron, azaleas, blackberry, highbush blueberry, and other members of the heath family.
Mysterious Origin
The balds have long intrigued those who have explored or studied them. While no one is certain of their origin—and speculation abounds—the existence of some balds before European settlers had a chance to alter the landscape has been well-documented in old explorer and surveyor logs and maps. Likewise, early photographs confirm the presence of balds not present on early maps or described in logs and notes, suggesting the latter were formed more by human footprint than natural causes.
One theory holds that the older balds are linked to the extreme cold of the last glacial episode, says Peter D. Weigl, an ecologist at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. “The forest moved down because of the extreme cold, and the higher peaks became grassy. Then, as the climate began to warm, the tree line moved back up. The hypothesis is that some 20 species of large herbivores kept some of these peaks open,” Weigl says.
Others say some combination of ice, wind, and fire created the original balds. Regardless of their origin, however, many scientists agree they were maintained by such large herbivores as mammoths, mastodons, and tapirs. Later, perhaps elk and bison—until they were wiped out by hunters—kept the areas cleared.
As photographic and historic evidence suggests, some balds may have developed through human intervention as European settlers cleared forested knolls to provide suitable pasture for livestock. Whatever the balds’ geneses, we know that in the more recent past domestic livestock maintained the high, grassy mounds that offer such magnificent views of the Great Smoky Mountains and valleys.
Encroaching Forest
Nevertheless, these balds are becoming less bald as woody plants encroach on the once-open fields. One of the main reasons for this loss of openness is that—once the Park was established in 1934 and the areas fell under Park Service protection—farmers had to cease grazing sheep and cattle on the balds, and the lush pasture has slowly and steadily yielded to more shrubs and trees year by year.
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Botanically diverse Gregory Bald is noted for its June flowering azaleas; some azalea hybrids occur only here.
Currently, all of the Park’s balds are decreasing in size—except Andrews and Gregory, which are managed in a way that keeps them open—says Kristine Johnson, supervisory forester and vegetation management specialist for GSMNP. A 1982 study by Stratton and White indicated that the Park hosts 15 grassy balds and that all of them were losing area at varying rates (Uplands Field Research Lab Report SER-58). To that point, the Park Service’s official stance had been to let natural succession take place on the balds.
In 1984, after further research indicated that bald areas were decreasing, the Park Service began to actively manage Gregory and Andrews balds. “While the Park’s general management plan covers only Gregory and Andrews, people occasionally suggest that we maintain other grassy areas as well, such as Parsons Bald and Spence and Russell fields,” Johnson says.
Although many areas open when the Park was established are now covered in forest, Johnson says the Park Service doesn’t have the funds to manage more areas. Indeed, just trying to return 14-acre Gregory (average elevation about 4,900 feet) and 8-acre Andrews (average elevation about 5,600 feet) to historical 1935 appearance has proved costly and challenging. Originally, Gregory comprised about 16 acres and Andrews about 9, Johnson says.
A Place in History
Gregory and Andrews balds were documented by the region’s earliest white explorers in the Davenport survey of 1821, which covered the area now comprising GSMNP. “Cherokee legends also mention the balds and refer to Gregory Bald as the ‘Place of the Giant Rabbit,’” Johnson says.
Andrews, perhaps the Park’s most visited bald because of its proximity (less than two miles) to the Clingmans Dome parking lot, boasts a small bog near its southern edge, June-blooming rhododendron and azaleas, and fall-blooming wildflowers. Gregory, famous for its wealth of hybrid azaleas, is located about five miles south of Cades Cove. Its grassy slopes sustain a variety of rare and endangered wildflowers, native grasses, and a rare, dwarf willow. The balds host several rare animal species as well.
Although the Park encompasses other grassy areas, including Hemphill Bald, Parsons Bald, Spence Field, Russell Field, and Rocky Top/Thunderhead, the Park Service chose to reclaim Gregory and Andrews “because of their unique plant communities of native grasses, rare plants, and hybridizing species of azaleas; their historical use by Indians and settlers; and the fact that they were bald prior to European settlement,” says Johnson.
Native Americans probably used the balds as hunting areas and lookouts and may have used fire to maintain them, says Johnson, and wood bison, deer, and other native grazers also contributed to keeping the balds cleared. Later, settlers grazed sheep and cattle on these high elevation meadows—not only to avoid ‘milk sickness’ that resulted when livestock consumed low elevation plants, but so lower fields, such as Cades Cove, could be used for crops.
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
The nearly mile-high "pasture" of Gregory Bald yields an incomparable view of the Great Smoky Mountains.
Currently, the balds not only face takeovers by such woody invaders as hawthorn, blackberry, blueberry, serviceberry, mountain laurel, and such trees as oak and beech, but other problems as well. For example, European wild hogs roll back turf as they root for food. Such disturbances allow woody plants to get a foothold and decimate desirable and endangered plants in the process. Further, horses used for recreational purposes introduce exotic grasses and barnyard weeds through the wastes they leave behind. Although horses are not permitted off trails, many riders disregard this ban, Johnson says, thereby spreading noxious seeds over a greater area.
Each year, in its effort to return Gregory and Andrews to their previous state and size, the Park Service dispatches five or six technicians on three week-long work trips to Gregory and another dozen technicians on two, one-day trips to Andrews, says Johnson. The Park Service’s practice of cutting encroaching shrubs and trees with weed eaters and a front-sickle-bar mower has nearly restored both balds to their original acreage.
By controlling woody growth on Andrews and Gregory, the Park Service is preserving a piece of history and biodiversity not found in the surrounding forest while providing panoramic vistas of the Smokies to those who care to hike to the grassy knolls. Meanwhile, the remaining balds give way to slow succession as nature takes her course.
For more information, contact Kristine Johnson, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 107 Park Headquarters Road, Gatlinburg, TN 37738, call 865-436-1707, or email <Kris_Johnson@nps.gov>.