Sometimes it doesn't snow in the Smokies

It took me over three years to go back to Smoky Mountain National Park, but I finally did. Last time, I was hiking in a foot and a half of freshly fallen snow and worried about hypothermia and running out of food. This time, it was beautiful 80-degree weather, and the mushrooms and millipedes were out in full force. I visited the Deep Creek area for a weekend of backpacking.

I have been devoting a lot of my energy to fungus this summer - mostly not the charismatic megafauna seen in these photos (fungus = flora or fauna if you had to characterize it of one of them? as it is more related to animals, I am going to call it fauna). I have been raising a little fungal farm on petri plates - of filamentous fungi of the plant pathogen variety. It is charismatic microfauna! Super-nerdy. Mycologists have more fungi.