From the first back packing trip in 1970 after several days of hiking.

The last half-mile to Silers Bald was steep. On that climb I repeated my moving and gasping method of covering the up hills while Mike waited. The bald itself was a large grassy area with shrubs scattered about randomly. The forest was already reclaiming this summer pasture used even before the white man entered the area. Service berry and yellow birch had sprung up. Thornless blackberry formed the southern edge of the bald. From its eastern edge, looking back over the trail we had taken, we could see the ridge running back clearly to the gap where the twin springs were located and the dense forest at the base of Mount Buckley and the long, narrow ridge east of Buckley’s crown. Five miles away was the massive form of Clingman’s Dome and the tower at the very top. A few degrees to the north and nine miles past Clingman’s we could see the three distinct peaks of Leconte. From where I stood on that windblown point of rock, I could see the crest of the Smoky high country, this perfect land, and I felt as though I owned it. I was overcome with the certainty that I was feeling the way I should feel in church but no longer did. Seeing the view of where we walked and the ground we covered, my thoughts were conflicted. I felt some pride in standing there, proud of some accomplishment, but seeing the rugged vastness in which I stood, my pride was mixed with a feeling of my absolute insignificance. I knew clearly that this complex and perfect world of shifting energy did not occur by some cosmic accident but by design and I was part of that design. Walking these days along stream and trail I knew without question I belonged here and in that fleeting moment when my mind and the world embraced, I became convinced of the existence of a Creator and I did not have this epiphany in a traditional church. I had sensed it here in a temple fashioned by the hand of God Himself.
From “Echoes”, one of my short stories.