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L L Bine, be an outsider. Outsider. Excited voices turn to whispers as twilight finally takes hold.

Visitors spread out along a gravel road that runs through the heart of an Appalachian forest. A few glowing red

flashlights are all that illuminates the trail as people search for a good spot

to settle in. Anticipation hangs in the humid air. For a while, everyone searches the forest,

eyes straining in the dark. It gets even quieter. And then, a single spark of light illuminates among the trees, earning a couple

gasps from the audience. It gently floats through the air for a few seconds

before the light blinks out.

Other lights begin to illuminate and drift among the trees.

Some appear on the forest floor.

They grow in number until there are thousands of glowing yellow lights, looking as if visitors

have stepped into the night sky itself. Once there are enough, something even more spectacular

begins to happen. The lights begin to glow in time with each other. At the top of the hillside through the trees

hundreds of fireflies blinked their lanterns with more joining them down the

hillside with every flash as they create a cascade of light to the bottom of the forest.

Then the lights at the top dim and the darkness follows all the way down the hill until the entire forest is dark again.

I'm Jason Epperson, and this week on America's national parks,

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