With snow at the higher elevations and a few cold mornings at the lower elevations, the afternoon sun warmed things up and the mountains started their spring bloom. Each day as we drove into the park you could see changes from the day before as more of the tree buds started to open.
As you can see in Dave’s sunrise picture above, the mountain colors were changing as the light green of the new tree leaves moved up the slopes. The dogwoods and redbuds were in bloom and on the forest floor the flowers started to open. There were three varieties of trillium (white, pink and yellow), crested dwarf iris, bluets, phlox, wild geranium and sharp-loped hepatica. The rhododendron and mountain laurel were everywhere and their buds were so big I hoped they would open but alas I think they bloom in May and June. I can just imagine that with so many of these shrubs, some of them 10 -15 feet tall, that the whole park is awash of red, pink and white blooms. Maybe we’ll have to plan another trip to see them.
The National Park and surrounding towns were full of people, some on spring break and others just walking thru, or should I say hiking. The Appalachian Trail, which is 2200 miles long from Georgia to Maine, runs thru the Park and we saw several hikers at the highest elevation, Clingmans Dome. Part of the trail runs in and out of the woods along Clingmans Dome Road and at Newfound Gap it crosses a large overlook parking lot. One hiker told us there’s a shuttle that comes to Newfound Gap and takes hikers down to Gatlinburg to spend some time at a hostel if they choose. We saw that several hikers chose to do so. Once we spent an hour or so walking the Appalachian Trail ourselves, it was plain to see why. We encountered muddy, slick trails from all the heavy rain and slippery, icy areas that were remnants from the recent snowfall, and it was warm when we hiked!
All the rain and melting snow added to the rush of the rivers and all the tributaries that cascaded down the mountains. The water was cold but there was plenty of activity on the Little River between kayakers and fly-fisherman. The wild trout fishing is supposed to be quite good and we saw people in the river on several days trying to catch some.
There was plenty other wild life also. The birds were quite prevalent with plenty of wild turkeys everywhere. We saw a coyote two nights in a row along the road on our way back from trying to get a good sunset photo. But the most popular attraction was the spotting of Black Bears. We came across a mother bear and her three cubs one night along with about 50 other people. Fortunately she was up the slope a ways which made it safe to watch her and her cubs at play. They sure did entertain the kids, big and little, as the cubs chased each other and ran up trees.
We also saw some of the damage that happened last November from the fires. Five of the heaviest damaged trails in the park were still closed while the park crews repair paths and bridges. There are still trees to remove and unstable trees to tend to. On the east end of Gatlinburg we saw the damage done to several houses and a couple of hotels. There is a lot of construction going on to replace those hotel structures.
Eight days in the Smokies was a fun time. Like Dave said there was a lot of weather change from snow to rain, 30 degree mornings and 70+ degree afternoons. Even with all the transitions, it was still easier to handle than tornadoes.
