Smoky Mountain Views

We took a 2-day trip to the Smokys this week with my nephew Ted Crawford and his wife Sherry. The mountains are beautiful.

We did the usual stuff like visiting Clingman's dome, the highest point in the park. The views from Clingman's Dome are excellent. That is, they are if the weather and visability cooperate. We had a little bit of fog and some haze, but not bad. At left is a view looking down on some mountains with cloud shadows.

Another great stop is the Sugarlands visitor center. It has very informative displays and a very nice gift shop. There are rangers on hand to answer any questions you may have and to give informal demonstrations and talks.

We hiked a little over 5 miles on a back country trail. There were specific bear warning signs for our trail. A ranger said that a bear had been confronting hikers by standing up on its hind legs and growling, just like on TV. We didn't see that bear. It probably knew not to mess with us.

We also did the loop drive around Cades Cove. We have always had great luck seeing wildlife on the Cades Cove trip. At left is one of the deer that we saw. As you can see, Cades Cove is a large flat bowl. It is only about 1,500 feet elevation and it is surrounded by 4,5,and 6 thousand foot mountains. This is the area that was farmed in the early 1900's. The park still mows and burns it on a regular basis, to keep it like it was in the early part of the century and probably to make it easier to see wildlife. Cades Cove is like a drive through an animal park except that the animals here are wild and are not fenced in.

Oh, did we see any bears? Yes we did! More on that in the next posting. My camera was acting up in the zoom mode so I am waiting for the great shot that Sherry got to show the picture and tell the story.