On our way North from our winter escape, we stopped for a week in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Although it was early spring there, I think we experienced four seasons worth of weather conditions.
On our first night we ventured up to the top of Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in the Smokies at 6644 feet. It was socked in with clouds. Couldn’t see a thing. We went up hoping for a sunset view so we hurried back down the mountain to find a better vantage point. Partway back down we found the turnout you see above so we decided to stop and set up. It was getting close to sunset. Even from here the clouds were pretty low so I wasn’t sure what kind of a sunset we’d have. It started out kind of slow but once the sun went down the color was pretty intense. At its peak, the low hanging clouds were changing so quickly they looked to be on fire. It was pretty dramatic light.
The next few days brought big change in the weather as winter returned to the higher elevations. We had some pretty cold mornings as we got up to see if we could reach the higher elevations for the snow. Since the top of Clingman’s dome was about an hour from the campsite, we had to leave the coach at 5:30am to catch sunrise. Unfortunately, the road to the top was closed due to the snow so we had to turn around and try and find another east facing viewpoint. Alas, no success that morning.
The weather conditions weren’t very conducive to making images for the next few days so we resorted to doing some scouting. We spent our time trying to find potential images for when the conditions would improve and what time of day would be the best light. This went on for a couple of days as we endured rain at the lower elevations and more snow, ice and closed roads at the higher elevations.
Once the storm system finally moved on we also started looking for more intimate landscapes as the dogwood and red buds were in full bloom. I searched around for some compositions where I could isolate the dogwoods against the forest background and finally found the one shown below.
As the weather cleared, so did the opportunity to get back to Clingman’s Dome to shoot sunrise and sunset. The sunset we caught, although nice, just wasn’t all that special so I haven’t included an image of that here. I did manage to capture a nice sunrise and that’s shown below. This one shows the classic Smoky Mountain ridges fading off into the distance along with a nice sky just before the sun came up. I always enjoy sunrise because it’s usually quieter than sunset without all the people. Sunset is easy to get to since you’re still awake. Sunrise requires getting up early, often in the cold, and getting to your location in the dark. Most people just aren’t willing to go to the effort so the scene is much quieter. I like that.
Another surprise was the amount of people from Michigan and neighboring states in the park that week. It turned out it was high school spring break and lots of people came down to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge for vacation. Most of the popular spots in the park were jammed with cars and people during the day so we didn’t bother with those. We focused on the quieter areas and also the quiet times of the day like sunrise and sunset.
It was nice to get into some mountains again even if it wasn’t the majestic mountains of western North America. The Smokies are fun to shoot but it is a busy park so you have to plan around the crowds. Like most of the National Parks, if you get off the beaten path and get to the less traveled areas you can still find the solitude most people seek when they go there.
