Kevin Adams, author of North Carolina Waterfalls and several other books, leads photo tours in the Blue Ridge Mountains and abroad. He lives on a farmette in the shadow of Cold Mountain with his wife, Patricia, their two cats, Lucy and Titan, and 10 chickens named after women on Star Trek and Game of Thrones. Learn more at kadamsphoto.com
Kevin Adams: “And I wonder, would I have dived so deeply into the field if the Blue Ridge Mountains weren’t in my backyard.”
“I think if we head right, we’ll eventually end up on the highway where we can hitch a ride back to the car.” Miles into the mountain wilds, nearing nightfall, dead of winter, rain threatening, my photo buddy and I knew full well that if I had made the wrong decision, we’d be making a miserable backtrack hours later in the dark and cold rain.
Hours later, while backtracking miserably in the dark and cold rain, we realized that not only were we up the creek without a paddle, we didn’t even have a boat. But we did have camera flashes. Fire the flash, hike 10 feet, repeat. All the way back to the car.
I’ve never been in this kind of situation since, but photography has “rescued” me countless times over the decades of my career.
Admittedly, without photography, I would not have totally exhausted my body during a 30-mile day hike on the toughest trails in the Smokies while carrying a full pack and tripod, but I also would not have the fulfilling sense of accomplishment or have photos that graced a national magazine.
No, I would not have nearly frozen to death on the summit of Max Patch Mountain 25 years ago, but I would have missed that glorious sunrise.
Yes, I would have gotten a lot more sleep, but I would have missed seeing the Milky Way shine above a Smokies cabin and a meteor fireball streaking above a North Carolina waterfall.
I never would have explored every backroad, every trail, every old building, and every living thing that I possibly could. I never would have learned all that I have about the natural and cultural history of North Carolina. I never would have seen hordes of waterfalls, more than a thousand in North Carolina alone.
I might have seen the big picture, but missed a lot of the details, the fun stuff, all the little things that make me look back on life with more contentment than regret.
Some will say that I could have experienced these things without being a photographer. But would I have done so? And, I wonder, would I have dived so deeply into the field if the Blue Ridge Mountains weren’t in my backyard. There was no question that as soon as I opened the birthday box that contained my first camera, I would head straight to the mountains and point it at a waterfall and mountain sunrise.
What I didn’t know then was that with camera in tow, the mountains would completely permeate my core and define the rest of my life.
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The story above appears in our Nov./Dec. 2018 issue. For more like it, subscribe today or log in to the digital edition with your active digital subscription.