Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest

I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.A tree whose hungry mouth is prestAgainst the earth’s sweetflowing breast. 

That's the first verse of Joyce Kilmer's short poem “Trees.” And the trees in the memorial forest named for Kilmer are enough to inspire you to pen your own verses.  Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest boasts more than 100 species of them over its 3,800 acres. 

Botanists have been known to speak in hushed towns when talking about the memorial forest and larger Joyce Kilmer-Slick Rock Wilderness of which it's a part. It's not hard to understand why. This is one of the best places to see old-growth Appalachian forest. With trees that measure more than 20 feet in circumference, 100 feet in height, and more than 400 years in age, it's almost easy to forget that almost all of the Appalachian Mountains have been cut and slashed for timber in the last 300 years. Rich forests cloak the mountainsides today, but they're a pale shadow of the majestic forests that predated the timber rush of the 1800s. 

Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest offers a glimpse of those lost forests. The forest's marketing doesn't mention the term "forest bathing," but that's exactly what a walk through the memorial forest entails. And don't be mistaken: an old-growth forest is about more than just the trees. Beneath the enormous tulip poplar, sycamore and basswood trees, the forest floor is covered with an abundance of moss, lichen, ferns and wildflowers. 

The land in and around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the world's richest temperate rainforests, and Joyce Kilmer stands as one of the oldest examples of it. These are the woods that fired the imaginations of the first European explorers about the so-called "New World" and its wealth of biodiversity. Wandering in these woods, one is humbled by the world and its enormity. Old-growth forests truly inspire one to dream. 

Two hiking loops wind through the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest—a 1.25-mile lower loop that passes a memorial plaque, and a shorter, 0.75-mile loop that takes hikers past the forest's largest trees, in Poplar Grove. Other trails link to longer hikes in the Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness, which totals 13,562 acres in North Carolina and 3,832 acres in Tennessee. Federal wilderness rules prohibit mechanized equipment such as chainsaws, bicycles and off-road vehicles, all but guaranteeing quiet and tranquility.