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...
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....
This time of year can be absolutely breathtaking in the Gatlinburg area. Both of these images show a winter panorama of the Smoky Mountains with Mt. LeConte center stage. They were taken from a ridge way out on Upper Middle Creek Rd. about 10 miles or so from the...
After a snowfall followed by frigid temperatures, I was out at the Ogle Place along the Roaring Fork in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. On this morning I was trying to keep feeling in my fingers with the temperature around 9 degrees! Photographing scenes like...
This footbridge is one of the special places in the Greenbrier section of the Great Smoky Mountains. It crosses the Ramsay Prong of the Little Pigeon River at the beginning of the trail that leads up to the Ramsay Cascades waterfall, and from there on up to the...
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...
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...
Philosophical Friday again. This time it's the classic situation that sometimes to go forward you've got to go backwards. The road up to Newfound Gap offers just such a case in point. The road climbs until it reaches a place on the mountain that is too steep for a...
The Ogle family goes way back in the Gatlinburg area. In fact, Noah Ogle's great-grandparents, William (1756–1803) and his wife Martha Huskey (1756–1826), made a life here in the early 1800s. Noah (aka Bud) and Cindy Ogle settled on this 400 acre homestead in 1879...
I can't think of a more idyllic way to get your exercise than to bike the Cades Cove Loop in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. From May through September on Wednesday and Saturday mornings until 10:00 the Loop Road is closed to motorized vehicles, so the entire...
The story goes that the Methodist Church in Cades Cove was constructed in 115 days at a cost of $115 by a man who served for many years as the minister. The current frame building was built in 1902, replacing the log structure that had served from the 1820s. Please...
The Primitive Baptist Church in the Cades Cove section of the Great Smoky Mountains was established in 1827 in a log structure that served the congregation until the current church was built in 1887. The graveyard behind the church has some very old tombstones with...