Great Smokey Mts Nature

An small assortment of wildlife and plants that we found in the Blue Ridge Mountains and Gatlinburg.

Great Smoky Mts Landscapes

Views from a couple of lookouts along Newfoundland Gap Road plus one waterfall photograph. Time of day and how much foreground changes the look of the image. Changing the skies would change the feeling a lot too.

Cades Cove Doors

I did 5 posts about Cades Cove starting on May 21 (see right side menu bar for links to the posts). Historicbuildings/cades-cove.html

This is the last one from Tennessee with old doors for Thursday Doors https://nofacilities.com/2024/05/30/on-board-the-delta-pearl/.

Sky Trail

We rode the cable cars to the Gatlinburg Sky Trail – Hike in SkyPark for fun. I included a couple of odd things we saw in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Enormous pickup trucks and SUVs are the norm down south.

Gatlinburg is 1,893 feet (577 meters) above sea level.  And Clingman’s Dome (we drove there) in Smokey NP is 6,643 feet.

Roaring Fork Plants

On our second drive though Roaring Fork I concentrated on nature. The Smokies are full of wildflowers in the spring. I saw many new species. I added a couple of things seen other places to this post. I welcome corrections to my attempts at identification.

Great Smokey Mts Mix

“The 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires, also known as the Gatlinburg wildfires, were a complex of wildfires which began in late November 2016. Some of the towns most impacted were Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, both near Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The fires claimed at least 14 lives, injured 190,and is one of the largest natural disasters in the history of Tennessee.

By December 12, the fires had burned more than 10,000 acres (15 square miles) inside the national park, and 6,000 acres in other parts of the area. At least 14,000 area residents and tourists were forced to evacuate, while over 2,000 buildings were damaged and/or destroyed.

One of the largest wildfires was the Chimney Tops 2 Fire, which burned more than 10,000 acres, and closed the Chimney Tops Trail.

The Great Smoky Mountains wildfires were the deadliest wildfires in Tennessee, as well as the deadliest wildfires in the eastern U.S. since the Great Fires of 1947, which killed 16 people in Maine. In addition, the fires were also the most deadly and destructive of the 2016 Southeastern United States wildfires.

American country singer and notable local resident Dolly Parton was among many notable figures to pitch in to assist victims.” Source: 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires – Wikipedia

Cades Cove Cabins 2 of 2

Built in 1866, the Elijah Oliver Place is one of the oldest surviving structures in Cades Cove. After the original farm was destroyed during the U.S. Civil War, Elijah Oliver rebuilt and created this historic farmhouse. Today, visitors can tour the house, gaining insights into the past while appreciating its significance as a National Register of Historic Places site.

The little room on the side was built for guests.

Cades Cove Cabins 1 of 2

We stopped and explored many of the old cabins on our drive around Cades Cove in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in Tennessee. Here is a bit of the History of Cades Cove – Great Smoky Mountains National Park (nps.gov). And here is a page with information about 12 Historical Structures in Cades Cove.