ABSTRACT
I had finally reached the bluff. Its gentle slope of pale gray granite was littered with patches of scrub grass and a haphazard collection of Table Mountain pines. The short, scrappy trees looked like they’d had a rough night, although their brutish flat tops made it clear that they were there long before me and would most certainly continue to hold court long after I’d gone. It was the third day of my field research in North Carolina. I stood high on a ridge overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains. My companions—nine teenage girls and their field guides—stood with me, resting after our long hike. It was a summer’s midday in 2015, and far off in the distance the undulating mountains rose softly green, quiet; imperturbable. They too had been here well before me.
