Hello.
I am here with Asheville Hiking Tours in Asheville.
I'm gonna be doing a couple tours with these guys.
I'm superduper excited because the first hiking stop that we are going to do
is to witness fireflies.
Yeah, we're gonna go watch some fireflies do their mating stuff.
Hopefully we're gonna see some fireflies,
if not, we are in the Blue Ridge area.
So, we're definitely gonna see some beautiful sights.
Ashville Hiking Tours does eco-tours.
Their highest concern is the safety and the preservation of the fireflies.
I can't disclose exactly where it is that they are taking us
because obviously we don't want crowds of people to come.
Before we start on our hike,
we are looking at a map and learning that the area
and the forest around here
and drinking some hot apple cider.
They got some cold too apple cider too
but, you know, I'm all about the hot cider, so.
We're right about here, looking that way.
And right here is a big cloud.
And we've a lot of diversity of fireflies here.
Do you know why?
Cause it ties back to, fireflies don't move very far
because for at least two years of their life,
they're actually in this grub like form on the forest floor.
They are in their adult stage as we know them
for only about two to three weeks of their life.
For two years they are barely moving.
We are under permit to protect.
Wow, everybody wordless this time.
Word compliance.
We had rebels last time.
I got a flashlight.
Obviously this is going to be a dark tour,
because, you know, it's nighttime
when for the fireflies to come out without the lights and all that.
We can't use regular flashlights when we're out there,
we actually have these which are not normal.
And that is as for their protection of the fireflies.
A cute little pocket of what's called Indian cucumber root.
And so, if we take just a few leaves, we can divide them out
you won't hurt the plant cause it will still flower.
Thank you.
And then the female actually eats the male.
Nature at its best.
Yeah, nature at its best.
And she will do this right after copulating with the males of her own species.
At the top here, you'll see this continuous line
is a flash pattern of the blue ghost fireflies.
So, they don't flash they're just gonna stay on.
Oh, boy.
Yes. Oh, did you not know that?
No.
I'm like assuming you all know what you're gonna see,
they're so bright.
- Isn't it awesome? - Yeah.
Oh God.
Wow.
Oh, look at them go.
OK. I don't know how much of that you actually saw
but it was amazing.
First of all, we went walking in the dark basically
to get to the part where the fireflies like to congregate.
The tour that I went on is for the synchronous fireflies
but it's not quite in season yet for them.
What we actually saw were the blue ghosts fireflies.
So, we got to this part on this wooden walkway
where we had all of her lights off
and we just laid on the wooden deck for about 15 minutes
and just stared up at the night sky,
and I saw a couple bats flying over me
and there were a few fireflies here and there
but that wasn't the magical moment.
When we were walking back to our car to wrap up the tour,
we turned off all of the lights
and we were just standing there in the dark on the pathway,
and suddenly all of the blue ghost fireflies
started to appear all around us
and they were trickling into the pathways through our feet.
It was like roll aliens were coming home to the mothership,
it was incredible.
I have never seen or experienced anything like that before.
Honestly, it was something that I will remember for the rest of my life.
I am still with Asheville Hiking Tours.
We are doing this hiking trail to visit some waterfalls here.
This mountain range that's here in the Appalachians
and the Blue Ridge area
is the oldest mountain range in the entire world.
We're now headed to our last waterfall.
So, I'm gonna begin wrapping up this video.
You can come here and you can do these things on your own if you want to
but I highly recommend taking a tour,
and the Asheville Hiking Tours are so amazing.
Their whole thing is sustainable travel, it's eco-tours
and the founder and owner of this company
is this girl who she has a PhD in forestry,
and, I mean, I hope I got that right.
But anyway, she is super rad and it's awesome to come here
and be able to support local companies like this.
Plus you always get a little nugget of information,
you get to learn about plants and wildlife
and get these facts that you normally wouldn't get
if you were just walking around reading signs.
I know that there wasn't a lot that you guys could see
but you need some really heavy-duty equipment
to be able to capture these fireflies on film and in photography.
I assure you it was a magical and amazing experience.
Thanks to Asheville Hiking Tours for making this possible.
I now have a beautiful memory in my brain for the rest of my life.
Hopefully you guys out there watching this video
will have the opportunity to do something like this in your lifetime
because it is well worth it.
For now I am gonna go.
So, I will see you when I see you, bye!
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