Take your family on a search for salamanders

We’ve reached the midway point of the Smoky Mountain Field School’s 2010 season, but there are many more adventures for you to enjoy.

Our July schedule includes Sensational Salamanders (July 17), a popular family course with enthusiastic instructor Liz Domingue. Bring your children and learn why the Smokies are called the Salamander Capital of the World!

You’ll also learn where salamanders live, what they eat, who eats them, and lots more.

Other July courses include:

• Edible & Poisonous Fungi of the Smokies (July 10) — Here’s your chance to learn about the many kinds of mushrooms and how to identify them by size, shape, and color. Instructor: S. Coleman McCleneghan.

• Intro. to Search & Rescue Management (July 24) — This workshop is an introduction to the management skills involved in conducting land search and rescue operations.

• Mosses, Liveworts, and Hornworts of the Smokies (July 31) — Learn about the small plants which form a green blanket over the forest floor—the luxuriant mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. View this miniature plant world with the aid of a hand lens and microscope.

• Rare Mountain Bogs of Upper East Tennessee (July 17) — This course will focus on basic wetlands processes (vegetation, soils, and hydrology) using some of the  globally rare, critically imperiled Southern Appalachian Bogs in Shady Valley, Tenn.

View the Smoky Mountain Field School online at www.outreach.utk.edu/smoky.

Darrin Devault, UT Professional & Personal Development

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Experience the thrill of fly fishing in the Smokies

Learn the skills and joy of fly fishing on May 8-9 in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

This Smoky Mountain Field School course include instruction in casting techniques, basic knot tying, reading the water, and on-stream demonstrations.

The course fee is $95; online registration is available.

Instructor Jim Casada will discuss essential equipment, popular mountain flies and their use, and trout-related entomology. On-stream photography will be covered briefly as well.

You must furnish your own equipment, and actual fishing is encouraged after class. If you plan to fish, you’ll need to provide your own license.

Casada will teach another two-day course on June 19-20. Online registration is also available for this course.

Casada is a retired university history professor, a son of the Smokies, an award-winning outdoor writer, and the author of several books on fly fishing, including Fly Fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: An Insider’s Guide to a Pursuit of Passion.

Darrin Devault, UT Professional & Personal Development

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Learn nature photography from a seasoned pro

If you want to develop your technical and visual skills in nature photography, I invite you to join instructor Kendall Chiles on April 17 for a Smoky Mountain Field School course titled “Spring Wildflower and Nature Photography.”

Chiles will concentrate on the two main subjects of spring photography in the Smokies—wildflowers and landscapes.

He’ll cover the principles of composition, perspective, exposure, light, and the proper use of equipment. Classroom instruction will be provided in the morning at Sugarlands Visitor Center in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and field instruction will be given in the afternoon.

The day-long workshop costs $49; online registration is available.

This workshop is applicable to both digital and 35mm SLR format cameras. You should bring lenses that have close-up capabilities and a tripod that can be used close to the ground.

Chiles is a freelance nature photographer with more than 20 years of photography experience. He teaches often through both the Smoky Mountain Field School and the UT Photography Certificate Program.

Darrin Devault, UT Professional & Personal Development

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Register now for Smoky Mountain Field School courses

 

An overnight winter backpack experience for you

The Smoky Mountain Field School opens its 2010 season on March 6-7 with an overnight backpack that combines a late winter and emerging spring experience.

“Mt. Sterling Firetower Overnight Backpack” begins off Old NC Highway 284 around 3,800-ft. at the east end of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and ends 2.7 miles later atop Mt. Sterling at 5,842-ft.

The course fee is $98 (non-refundable), and we’ve only got space for 4 more participants. Online registration is available.

The 60-ft. abandoned tower, completed in 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, provides stunning 360-degree views on a clear day.

Though steep, the continuing rise in elevation from the trailhead to the summit is tempered by good footing found on the old roadbed. At 2.3 miles into the climb the trail levels out considerably as the final approach is made along the Mt. Sterling Ridge Trail.

Join your experienced winter hiking guides Joel and Kathy Zachry as they share interesting stories and useful tips on hiking and camping in the region.

The Smoky Mountain Field School is an educational partnership between Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Darrin Devault, UT Professional & Personal Development

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Smoky Mountain Field School offers workshops, hikes, and other mountain adventures

It won’t be long until spring arrives. When it does, we’re all set to open the Smoky Mountain Field School for its 32nd season.

“Expand your interest in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and really get to know it through the variety of courses offered this year,” says Park Superintendent Dale Ditmanson. “For generations, the unspoiled mountains, forests, and streams have been a haven for wild life and an inspiration for mountaineers, backpackers, and casual visitors.”

A variety of workshops, hikes, and other mountain adventures begin in March and continue through October.

Five courses are offered in March: Mt. Sterling Firetower Backpack Hike (March 6-7), Winter in the Woods: Buds, Branches, and Bark (March 13), Animal Tracking & Nature Observation (March 21), A Day of Emerging Plants, Shrubs, and Trees (March 27), and Polliwogs, Eggs, and Singing Frogs (a family program on March 27).

View the entire course schedule.

“Join the Smoky Mountain Field School for a learning adventure,” Ditmansan says. “It will be an enriching experience you will always treasure.”

Darrin Devault, UT Professional & Personal Development

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Smoky Mountain Field School instructor Joe Kelley shares stories from his career as a Park Ranger

Retired Park Ranger Joe Kelley shared stories about his 30-year career with the U.S. National Park Service recently during the annual Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

Kelley said he entered college with plans to be a minister.

“I thought that was what I was supposed to do,” he said. “My pulpit was the National Park Service. I was led to it, and it turned out that the work we did was so much like a ministry and a community it compared so much.”

Read reporter Gail Crutchfield’s entire article about Kelley in The Mountain Press (Sevierville, Tenn.).

Even in retirement, Kelley continues to be a frequent instructor in the Smoky Mountain Field School, an educational partnership between the University of Tennessee and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Online registration for the Field School’s 2010 season is already available.

Darrin Devault, UT Professional & Personal Development

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Photo exhibit to celebrate the Smokies

We’re planning to recognize Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s 75th anniversary with a photography exhibit at the UT Conference Center.

The enlarged photos (11 x 14) arrived in my office yesterday, and they’re certainly a celebration of the Smokies.

UT has partnered with the National Park for 31 years to offer adventures, hikes, and workshops through the Smoky Mountain Field School.

The Field School’s special photography exhibit will open in early May. I’ll share more details soon.

Darrin Devault, UT Professional & Personal Development

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We’re now on Facebook, too

We know you’re out there, so UT Professional & Personal Development (PPD) invites all of you “Facebookers” to join our new groups.

We have:

• a general PPD group for persons interested in our non-credit professional and personal development programs; and 

• a Smoky Mountain Field School group for outdoor enthusiasts who enjoy adventures in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Sign up for one or both groups and join the discussion.

Darrin Devault, UT Professional & Personal Development

 

Smoky Mountain Field School “uplifting,” instructor says

I recently asked Joel Zachry for a quote that I could use in a news release to announce the 2009 season of our Smoky Mountain Field School, which offers workshops, hikes, and adventures in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Field School is a 31-year partnership between UT and the National Park.

Zachry and his wife, Kathy, have taught Field School courses for many years.

I expected Zachry to provide a good comment about our program, but I didn’t quite expect the following:

“The Field School has been a wonderful cooperative effort between the University and the National Park,” Zachry said. “People from all walks of life, professions, and outdoor interests come together to learn in small group settings.

“In my 28 years on the Field School staff I have never come away from a session without learning something myself from a participant,” Zachry continued. “It has always been a guide in my life to surround myself with people who lift me up, rather than tear me down, and I always come away from a Field School gathering enlightened and uplifted.

“Too, I depart with hope for our environment and the knowledge that many others share my love of nature and respect for the creation.”

Wow! Who wouldn’t want to experience the Smokies with an instructor such as Zachry?

Field School courses begin in late March, and registration is already underway.

By the way, Zachry and his wife will lead several Field School adventures in 2009, including a new course, “Spring Wildflowers and Walker Sisters’ Homesite,” on Saturday, April 11.

Darrin Devault, UT Professional & Personal Development