This Landmark Maple is directly North of MP 278 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is a community heritage tree with a family cemetery beneath it. It is also adjacent to and visible from the Mountains to Sea Trail across from Osbourne Mountain Overlook (200 feet). It is within the Parkway "right of way" and worth the walk up for the view and the contemplation of the heritage notions revealed beneath this Maple.
Ash Tree (a blog reader) makes the following comments...
I live out in Deep Gap. For me, this grand landmark Maple has come to symbolize coming home to Deep Gap's majestic mountains, rolling fields, and pungent smell of cows every day. This tree has been my solace each day I see it reaching closer to the heavens than anything else around.
While seeing this beautiful Heritage Tree brings me joy each day, I am saddened that this Maple is the only tall tree like it for several hundred yards on the top of this mountain. How long has it been alone? What other kinds of beautiful trees once stood near it right outside of the cemetary before they were cut for human purposes?
I hope that this blog and other forms of human passion for trees will preserve the Heritage trees in the High Country, including those younger trees that will some day carry a heritage of their own......
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