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I scanned the shoreline of Jocassee and breathed a sigh of relief. The mountains were still standing. Swaths of trees were uprooted and blown down into messy piles of trunks and branches. Layers of saturated soil were gone, slipped off of the rocks into the depths of Jocassee. Yet still, Bald Eagles rose in spiral currents and Monarch butterflies glided and fluttered towards Mexico, orange stained glass against a Carolina blue sky. Loons came in hungry from an undoubtedly long journey, diving and splashing as they dined on a fine meal of fish. Silky filaments of spider webs caught glimmers of sunlight as they float across the lake. Life is still going on. These mountains are unperturbed because this is nothing new. For millions of years wind and water has scoured them. Catastrophic geological events and quiet daily events have shaped them. Change is what formed this place. And here, in the Jocassee Gorges, the human hand is so light we get to watch the process of the resilient recovery of wild things. In the middle of the devastation natural events have brought to humans, come visit Lake Jocassee and take a deep, centering breath. The mountains are still standing. The land will heal and the new scars will one day become the beauty we look in wonder at. ~Tricia Kyzer, JLT guide