Ann Litrel

The Valley of the Giants

ART AND TEXT BY ANN LITREL

We followed the narrow road as it twisted up the mountain. The day was dark and misty. We’d been wandering a wild tract of North Georgia, near Suches, for more than an hour. Old logging roads branched off on either side of us and faded into the trees.

Were we lost? No. But we could not find what we were looking for – the Valley of the Giants.

The giant poplars of Cooper Creek Recreation Area are a Georgia natural wonder, one of 35 from a bucket list of sites I’ve been painting on a five-year project. I searched for the giants in this mountain wilderness twice before, looking unsuccessfully for the unmarked trail.

This time, my son Tyler, 27, came with me, promising to help me find them. He checked the printed directions again, from a Sherpa guide online, noting that the trail pitches steeply north.

We crept past another old logging road, barred with a metal gate. We’d passed it twice already, dismissing it because of its level grade — nothing pitching about it. But, it did seem to be in the right general area.

Tyler pulled our car over to the narrow shoulder, and we got out, standing undecided whether to venture this dubious path. As we hesitated, a small hatchback pulled up behind us. A nondescript man, seeming neither young nor old, got out of the vehicle. He smiled and pulled out some hiking poles.

I asked him if he knew if this was anywhere close to the Valley of the Giants. “Yes, this is the trail,” he said. He pointed to the old, gated road. I was elated. We’d found it!

He told us it was only a mile or so to the trees. At long last, I was finally going to see them, the mountain giants — trunks supposedly 18 feet in circumference, somehow still standing after two centuries of logging.

Tyler and I set out, the hiker ahead soon disappeared in the mist. Damp leaves muffled our footsteps; moss stretched its long green fingers over every rock and fallen log. White trillium raised ghostly faces from the forest floor. A small dusky salamander flicked beneath a leaf at our feet.

Soon, we became aware of the first silhouettes of the giants, looming in the mist, on the slopes above the trail. We slowed and looked on in wonder. They dwarfed the lesser trees around them; trees that would be large in younger woods, but here, lesser dwellers of an ancient place where giants still live. Moss shrouded their massive bases in pillows of vivid green. I placed my hand on the trunk of one … how old? Two hundred years? Three hundred?

The hiker reappeared, returning from the trail’s end, perhaps. We asked him if we should go further. “Yes, the biggest tree is just a little farther ahead. You’ll see it on the left,” he said.

Then, he was gone. I’ve had this strange experience before — a feeling that each of these special places has a kind of guardian angel, someone who watches over it, who guides friendly visitors along the path. Tyler and I remarked on the man’s face. He had bright eyes, unclouded by the troubles of the outside world and its passing stress and strains.

After arriving at the largest tree, we rested for long moments before turning to hike back, listening. The giants were silent. Living in a different time. Rooted like rocks in the mountain — and to remain, l hope, long after we have gone.

Ann Litrel is an artist and certified Master Naturalist. She instructs nature journal workshops and paints in her studio, Ann Litrel Art, in Towne Lake.