And, there’s more!
Readers of my photography article last week will remember the Southern Appalachian Aurora of 2025, beautifully paired with Philene Alvarado’s poetry. Most had forgotten that snow showers had blanketed the highest elevations the day before, leaving one of Badger’s favorite elevated playgrounds coated in fresh white.
Whenever snow falls on Roan Mountain, I can count on adventurer, photographer, and entrepreneur Joseph Nitti to reach out. Joe inevitably proposes a hike that starts in freezing darkness long before sunrise.
What made this morning extraordinary was that the same geomagnetic storm was still flickering across the Tennessee sky. My unplanned all-nighter morphed into a 3 a.m. alarm, a bleary-eyed drive up I-26, and a rendezvous in the town of Roan Mountain, where Joe picked me up and drove us to Carver’s Gap.
En route to meet Joe, I pulled off at the scenic overlook near the Tennessee Welcome Center on the slim chance the sky still held color. My Aurora Alerts app showed promise, and the gamble paid off gloriously: above the Cherokee National Forest, the Northern Lights pulsed and danced in waves of red, green, and purple.
Aurora Borealis over Cherokee National Forest
Even in the halcyon days of my youth, that kind of sleep deprivation and nocturnal haul would have wrecked me. Fortunately, Badger turns into a certified “adrenagenarian” when the moment demands it — especially when Joe Nitti comes calling with another expedition.
We pushed through snowdrifts up to a foot and a half deep along the Appalachian Trail, climbed past Round Bald, paused often for photographs, and still met the sunrise with time to spare.
Joseph Nitti and Thomas Mabry at daybreak on snowy Roan Mountain
As the sun crested Grassy Ridge, gilding the fresh snow while faint aurora ribbons lingered in the sky, I stood beside Joe – heart pounding, feeling utterly alive. Some fires don’t fade with age; they just wait for the right spark. For this adrenagenarian, Joe Nitti is still the surest strike of the match. The mountain will be there tomorrow, and so, against any odds, so will we.
Author’s Note: Joseph Nitti is the Admin of the Facebook Group The Real Banner Elk and his Gallery (together with a selection or two from Badger) can be found in the Mountain Hugger Emporium located in the red caboose on Main Street in Banner Elk, North Carolina.
Photograph © 2025 Thomas Mabry @honeybadgerimages – All Rights Reserved
Many of the HoneyBadgerImages are on display at instagram.com/honeybadgerimages.
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