Predicting the winter movements of semi-migratory birds can be tricky business. Sometimes birds move south because food has become scarce in the north, as was the case with Pine Siskins last winter. Other times, an abundance of food creates a hyper-successful breeding season that results in overpopulation and migration south.

Few of us with roots in the 1960s can imagine the world of environmental writing without Michael Frome. Actually, it was my mother who first discovered his articles following our trip west in 1959. From our home in Binghamton, New York, she had driven my brother August and me 10,000 miles, visiting national parks the entire way. After spending three days each at Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon, we thought we had seen it all. It little occurred to us, jockeying among the crowds of other auto “campers,” that an even greater, untouched wilderness lay beyond the pullouts, roads, and parking lots. That discovery awaited the writings of Michael Frome.

Visitors come to Great Smoky Mountains National Park for many reasons. They want to hike the more than 70 miles of the rugged Appalachian Trail that meander through the park, to camp in its dense forests, to cool off in one of its many streams, or to take a leisurely drive along the scenic Newfound Gap Road that crosses the heart of the park to connect Tennessee with North Carolina. Regardless of the reason, they come—in droves. Every year, 8-10 million people travel to the Smokies, making it the most-visited national park in the country.

An area of Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been closed to the public through next March to ease the stresses on hibernating bats.