All the world is filled with wonders and I make it a point to seek them out and experience them. I learned of one such wonder about a year ago when I saw an event posting on Facebook for the Foxfire Night Hikes at Anna Ruby Falls. The trail to the gorgeous twin waterfall is normally closed at 5:00 PM, but for these special guided night hikes, it is reopened for registered guests. The description talks about a particular kind of insect larvae that glow blue on either end of it's body to attract prey. The larvae are only found in moist pockets of the southern Appalachians between mid-May and mid-June. While I was just at this waterfall with my mother a few weeks ago, I wasn't going to miss an opportunity to experience this amazing bit of nature.
I arrived at the gate at the specified time of 7:30 PM, but it was still closed. Several others were here as well. I wasn't really worried, but discussed the situation with the other attendees. In my way of thinking, it makes sense for the organizers to tell everyone to arrive early and then wait until nearly the last minute to let everyone in. Indeed, this is what happened. At about 8:50 PM a gentleman and his young son drove down to the gate from the inside. He walked past each waiting car to check their registration and then opened the gate and let us in. From there, it's another mile or so to the parking lot for the waterfall and we met our guide, Libertee, who works for the Find Outdoors organization. She gave us a quick introduction, handed out some red-filtered flash lights, and after a short wait while darkness settled in, we headed up the steep paved trail towards Anna Ruby Falls.
Other than the beautiful scenery, there wasn't much to see on the way up as it still wasn't quite dark enough. Our guide was being very watchful for critters along our path and saved a toad, a snail, and a centipede from the oncoming foot traffic of our group. She seemed knowledgeable and nice. After the short half-mile hike, we arrived at the waterfalls. This is one of the most beautiful waterfall areas in Georgia and it's interesting to see it at twilight. The crashing water is loud, but our guide did her best to speak over it so everyone could hear her instructions.. We waited here for a short time, again waiting for it to get even darker.
As we begin looking around, we see the first signs of the foxfire. On the wet rocks below the observation deck, very faint specks of blue light can be seen emanating from near the surface. In this low lighting situation, it's difficult to tell if it's just our eyes playing tricks on us, but it's not. This is actual bio-luminescence at work and as darkness envelops us over the next few minutes, the foxfire becomes even more pronounced.
Libertee explains that the light is generated through a chemical reaction in the orfelia fultoni larvae, which are a tiny predatory fly larvae. Presumably, they emit this glow to attract prey. She also explains that while there are a few here, we will see significantly more of the larvae as we return the way we came. In addition to the larvae, the area around is also full of phausis reticulata, or blue ghost fireflies. This species of firefly glows blue instead of the yellow and green of those I've grown up with. They also have the distinction of the leaving their light "on" for up to a minute, instead of flashing just for a moment like the ones I've seen before. The combination of these two different blue light sources in this setting is kind of eerie, but incredibly cool.
We begin to make our way back down the trail and we are buzzed a couple of times by blue ghosts darting in between our hikers. Also the rocks along the right side of the trail, moistened by run off, are ablaze with foxfire. Okay, I exaggerate. The light emitted from these little guys is very faint, but there are enough of them on the surface of these rocks to leave no doubt of what we're seeing. Unfortunately, the phone on my camera isn't good enough to capture anything in this low light situation and so all the pictures posted here were borrowed taken by professional photographers with special equipment and borrowed from Google.
Eventually, we return to the parking lot, but I have to say that this was a truly amazing experience. Both the foxfire larvae and the blue ghosts have a sort of mysticism about them and I'm privileged to have been able to experience these biological wonders. I've learned that Dismal Canyon in Alabama also has a dense population of these little guys and as I've been trying to get over there anyway, I may just have to make it a night hike around this time next year.
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