T 
II 
TRAUMFEST ON THE BLUE RIDGE 
,- I tHE Blue Ridge! What mountains ever offered 
themselves to the sun so enchantingly as the 
long curve of the Appalachian chain where it passes 
through Virginia and North Carolina down to Ala- 
bama, running all the way full southwest! This 
battlement of heaven was not named by accident. 
It was named Blue because there was no other name 
for it. It is blue; tremendously, thrillingly blue; 
tenderly, evasively blue. And the sky that contains 
it is also entrancingly blue; even the storms do not 
make it sullen, and when they pass, the sun breaks 
out more radiantly than ever. Beyond the Blue 
Ridge in North Carolina, other and higher mountains 
rise like spirit forms into the deep sky, rank upon 
rank, height upon height, guarded as it were and 
protected by the encircling wall of the Blue Ridge. 
Traumfest, Fortress of Dreams, rests in a vast 
amphitheatre on the eastern front of the Blue Ridge, 
an amphitheatre formed by a cordon of forest-cov- 
ered mountains that nearly inclose the place, and 
among which are Hogback on the south and Tryon 
Mountain on the north, both descending towards 
the east in a series of ridges surmounted by low 
peaks, and leaving open between them a wide arc 
for the sun to enter. And how the sun does enter, 
