Welcome to Friday. A weekend! Gratitude for another day. The simple beauty of dawn drifting towards the fullness of the day, weather becoming whatever it will. The road beckons, cares and worries in the rearview mirror. Miles away. There are many opportunities in the Smoky Mountains to let the road carry you away. Even some…
If you follow this blog, you know that I enjoy volunteering to help shuttle Appalachian Trail hikers between Gatlinburg and the Trail. I love to get up early, pick up the hikers at their hotel, and head up the mountain. Everyone has a story, and they are all happy to be off on their adventure….
It’s another Spiritual Sunday. Today we are in the Deep Woods. Something about being among Big Trees speaks to a person’s soul. If you’ve ever stood in a grove of California Redwoods, you know the feeling. They’ve lived for so long, and withstood so many of nature’s hardships. They tower above their peers, leaving you…
Dogwood Home is a featured photo at the William Britten Gallery. It is offered in all sizes up to 20×30. Details of sizes and prices can be found on the How to Buy page. The dogwood blooms were especially pretty in the Cades Cove area of the Smoky Mountains during the spring of 2012 when…
It’s a glorious springtime in Cades Cove. The dogwood blooms have come early, and the Smoky Mountains are dressed in their spring finery. There are opportunities for Smoky Mountains photos everywhere you look. The pictures on this page were taken along Sparks Lane, the first cut-through in Cades Cove. Early in the morning, soon after the…
Readers of this blog know that I enjoy volunteering to help Appalachian Trail hikers shuttle between Gatlinburg and the trail. Most of these folks have spent a lot of time planning and dreaming of their adventure, and it warms my heart to assist them in some small way. This week I was scheduled to give…
Greenbrier Spring was taken just downstream from the bridge leading up the Ramsay Prong Road in the Greenbrier section of the Smoky Mountains. The creek entering from the right is the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River, and straight ahead is the Ramsay Prong entering. A beautiful spring day after the dogwood blooms have…
Morton Overlook is one of the classic locations for Smoky Mountains photos. You could stop here every day for 365 days in a row and never see the same scene twice. The overlook is on Newfound Gap Rd, near the top, and there is an identifying sign, so it’s easy to spot. The photo above…
The images on this page are from a 1949 US Geological Survey Map of the Smoky Mountains, which was based on the 1931 map created at the time the National Park came into existence. A copy of this historical topo map can be downloaded from http://williambritten.com/GSM/ If you right-mouse-click on the file named GSMNP_topo.jpg you can save the file…
The Smokies got a short-lived winter snowstorm earlier this week. By lunchtime the weather turned warm and sunny, and the snow was but a memory. I was out early, hoping to get up to Newfound Gap while the scenery was still fresh, but the route over the mountains was closed. I spent an hour on…
This week we awoke to what has been a rare sight this winter: a blanket of snow! However, the forecast was for temperatures in the 50s, so I scampered out to take some Smoky Mountains photos of the winter scenery before it all disappeared. My plan was to head up to Newfound Gap, stopping at…
It’s definately the winter time here folks. The excitement of the holidays is a fading memory. The Smoky Mountains are currently shrouded in a half-hearted, left-over snow. Clingman’s Dome road and the Roaring Fork are closed for the winter. The picture above was taken from the Oconaluftee Overlook …. same place as the glorious summer…
Place of 1000 Drips is one of my oldest and most enduring Smoky Mountains photos. This is a popular roadside waterfall along the Roaring Fork Motor Trail. Turn at stoplight #8 in Gatlinburg, bearing to the right at the top of the hill, you will enter the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and begin a 6-mile…
Smoky Mountains photos need not always be in color, as these three vistas illustrate. The photo above is the classic shot from Mortons Overlook near the top of Newfound Gap Rd. Looking down the valley back towards Gatlinburg, with the Chimneys visible in the upper left. A nice mist rising up the hillsides. The photo…
It’s the last day of October, and it has been an exceptionally busy month in my Gallery and at the October Craftsmens Fair in Gatlinburg. I want to thank everyone who stopped by to say hello, and if you bought one of my Smoky Mountains photos, thank you again and I hope it gives you…
William “Fighting Billy” Tipton was Revolutionary War veteran and the first of the Tipton clan to acquire land in the Smoky Mountains. This was in the 1820s under Tennessee’s Land Grant program. Colonel Hamp Tipton, a veteran of the Civil War, built the two story cabin above in the early 1870s. Miss Lucy and Miss…
Spiritual Light is one of my Smoky Mountains photos taken from the Morton Overlook near Newfound Gap. The dramatic rays of sunset filtering through the trees lasted only a moment or two, so I had to be quick with the camera! The vantage point from Morton Overlook is good for sunset photos during the summer…
Today is my wife, Sarah’s birthday. Happy Birthday Sarah! Last week we got up very early … before 5am … and drove over to Cades Cove to walk along the Loop Rd as the sun came up. It was one of the days when the loop is closed to car traffic until 10am, which makes…
Noah “Bud” Ogle was a Smoky Mountain farmer who lived from 1863 to 1913. The cabin was built in the 1880′s and consists of two cabins sharing a single chimney, known as a “saddlebag” style. The Ogle farm is the first stop on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. From stoplight number 8 in Gatlinburg,…
Dogwood Tapestry is one of my premier Smoky Mountains photos in a vertical format. The scene is along the Middle Prong of the Little River, in the Tremont section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This photo is from the same area as Dogwood Rain. The finished photograph is actually a mild double exposure….
These are stressful times. So much strife in the world, polarized beliefs, and intolerance. Some days it’s too much for a sensitive person, and I have to turn off the news and turn off my thoughts. I use nature, and the grand expanse of Smoky Mountains at my doorstep, to recalibrate and rebalance. I feel…
A commitment is required to experience the quiet grandeur of a Smoky Mountains dawn such as this. With close to an hour drive from the Gatlinburg area, it’s a very early wake-up call. And it’s a gamble, since on any given day you may experience only dense fog at the mile-high elevation. But the rewards…
Cades Cove Morning is a fairly new addition to the William Britten Gallery, taken from Hyatt Lane in the Cades Cove section of the Smoky Mountains. This photo was taken just after 7:00, when the morning was bathed in a golden, syrupy light, and the mist still lingering on the valley floor. This photo draws…
I made a late-evening run up to Newfound Gap to deliver a hiker to the Appalachian Trail. This was Moises (pictured below), who had called me from Chicago. It was his first AT hike, and he’d been on a bus since 4:00am! As darkness was fast approaching, we decided to ride a few miles out…
There are some wonderful and easy Smoky Mountains hikes at 5000 feet and above that will transport you from the dense hardwood forests of the Southeast to the balsam-scented spruce and fir forests of the Great North Woods. You don’t need to be a back-country camper or Appalachian Trail through-hiker to find the surreal serenity…
The Sinks is a popular Smoky Mountains waterfall stop along Little River Road. Especially after a rainfall, it can be quite dramatic to stand in the observation area opposite the falls. The Sinks is also of geological interest. From the back of the parking area you can see an old dry riverbed which was once…
It’s a moody Smoky Mtn Monday in early May. The valley is lush with spring green, while the upper elevations are still shrugging off winter. The vantage point for this view is the Oconaluftee Valley Overlook, gazing into North Carolina from the parking area off Newfound Gap Rd. This is a spot for the usual…
Happy Friday! It’s been a while since we had a Philosophical Friday. Today’s thoughts are about living in an area like Gatlinburg that features great changes in altitude. Downtown Gatlinburg is about 1500 feet above sea level, yet only about 20 miles away, on the top of Clingman’s Dome, the altitude has climbed to 6,643 feet!…
I live in Gatlinburg TN, on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains. The Smokies are a very spiritual place, and I attempt to capture some of that spirit in each of my photographs.
If you are in Gatlinburg, please stop in at my gallery .
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