Tall trees and transcendence

 The caregiver came at 11 this past Saturday and I was able to throw together my camera and some snacks and hear for the open road and a visit to one of my all-time favorite places — Beidler Forest in Four Holes Swamp, about an hour from Charleston.  It should be familiar by ow to you, as I have written about it often here in these pages and posted many photographs of the tall trees and swamp reflections along the raised boardwalk.  It is the largest remain stand of uncut tupelo gum-bald cypress bottomland swamp forest in the world.  It is a Ramsar Wetland of International Significance, one of only 26 in the United States.

Beidler Forest is a majestic place where the still ness is broken only by the sound of birdsong and the rustling of squirrels on the forest floor. For a precious hour or more that Saturday afternoon, I felt that deep peace which comes from an intimate communion with Nature, with tall trees and fresh, cool air and sunshine and shadows in the swamp.   As always, I didn’t want to leave, so pure and undefiled by human alteration is this place.  .  I could have stayed for hours, walking along the boardwalk over the flowing swamp waters, past 10-story tall, 1,000-year old cypress trees soaring up into the sky above me on all sides.  I have been coming here for at least 30 years and probably longer (laste 70s), and it never ceases to be a marvel for me.

A set of pictures taken in the swamp Saturday:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/camas/sets/72157632753763267/

Remarkable places: Beidler Forest, from the National Audubon Society:

blog.audubonguides.com/2012/10/11/remarkable-nature-places-beidler-forest/