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!…
In April of every year the Smoky Mountains are showered with dogwood blooms like a late spring snowstorm. Everywhere you go … up in the Greenbrier, along the Little River or the lower elevations of the Newfound Gap Road … in Elkmont and Tremont … the dogwoods sprinkle their blooms like white notes on the…
This past week I took advantage of a lovely spring morning to walk to Bud Ogle Nature Trail before my day in the Gallery began. The Bud Ogle Farm is a popular tourist stop at the start of the Roaring Fork Motor Trail, one of the best Smoky Mountains drives. Most people explore Bud’s cabin…
Two random Smoky Mtn waterfalls today, one that you hike to, and the other is just a roadside pull-off. The photo above is Fern Branch Falls. This is about two miles up Porters Creek Trail in the Greenbrier section of the Smokies. Fern Branch empties into Porters Creek below this falls. The hike up Porters…
The Walker Sisters Place is one of many Smoky Mountain homesteads. The five spinster sisters clung to the old self-reliant way of life and became legends in the Smokies. Their lifetime lease on the property ran out in 1964 when the last sister died. Their parents, John and Margaret, had moved to the homestead in…
Spruce Flat Falls is one of the hidden gems of the Smoky Mountains. The hike is about a mile each way, not too rugged but with a bit of a climb. The trail passes through a thicket of Mountain Laurel, which will be in bloom the first week or two in May. It’s also a…
Driving along Little River Road in the Smoky Mountains last week, the water was high from several days of rain, and there were kayakers putting their boats in the water all along the stretch of road between Townsend and Elkmont. Passing the Sinks parking area, I was surprised to see kayakers unloading there. The currents…
In the late 1920s Gatlinburg entrepreneur Jack Huff built a 20 by 24 foot cabin out of balsam logs that was the forerunner of today’s LeConte Lodge. The roof was tarpaper, with a floor of native clay. For more than 35 years Jack and his wife Pauline operated Mt. LeConte Lodge. Jack was the son…
Mt. LeConte is the third-highest Smoky Mountains peak, but to me it represents the skyline of the Smokies. As you approach from the north, Mt. Leconte is a Smoky Mountains landmark seen from 50 miles away, or further on a clear day. As you travel around the Gatlinburg area, there is LeConte, above you in the sky,…
Can a person ever get too much Cades Cove or Smoky Mountains? No need to answer … I find myself drawn back these days over and over to see what’s happening. Mostly it’s been all about pictures of deer this winter … the bucks and the does. Today it’s just the boundless serenity of the…
This time of year in our Smoky Mountains we are all itching to say good-bye to winter and welcome springtime and the wildflower season. These are my candidates for the best early spring wildflowers that may be found in March after some warm days and a bit of rainfall. Follow the links below for more…
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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