Author Archives: admin

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
How GSMA Employees Deal With the Heat

June 13, 2008 – 7:33 am

This is how Alice at the Gatlinburg Welcome Center coped with the heat wave we’ve been having — she ran around barefoot in the rain in front of the store! Go Alice!

Posted in Scrapbook | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
Hemlock Wooly Adelgids Swarm on Mt. LeConte

June 10, 2008 – 10:19 am

Here’s what a swarm of those merciless, tree-murdering hemlock wooly adelgids looks like (when they are lying dead in a sandbox on Mt. LeConte). Disgusting, and yet, the good news is that these are dead.

Photo by Allyson Virden

Posted in Befuddled Botanist - Flora - Plants, Bunglesome Biologist - Fauna - Critters | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
Banjo Playing

June 6, 2008 – 10:16 am

Here’s another great Donna Eaton photo of a banjo being played. I can just hear it now, can’t you?

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GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
Every Trail in the Park — All 900 Miles of Them (!!)

June 4, 2008 – 1:56 pm

Enjoy these photos of the last leg in Marti Smith’s 9-year-effort to walk every trail in the Park! Way to go Marti!
Who is that masked woman?

Suppertime! Yummy.

Marti has some hardy friends who hike with her.

She had to cross creeks…

She had to climb over and under “windfalls” or “blowdowns” or “deadfalls” as these fallen [...]

Posted in Fear, Loathing & Hiking | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
Bears in the Backyard!

June 3, 2008 – 8:24 am

Sue, wife of GSMA Executive Director, Terry Maddox, took these photos of a mother bear and her three (3!!) cubs in their backyard yesterday afternoon.

Posted in Bears, Bunglesome Biologist - Fauna - Critters, Scrapbook | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
After Nine Years… Success!

June 2, 2008 – 12:32 pm

Marti Smith, the manager of our stores at the Gatlinburg Welcome Center and the Parkway Welcome Center, is a very dedicated hiker.  This past Saturday, she finished hiking every single one of the 150 trails in the national park.  It took nine years, but she did it!
Click the photo below to see my video tribute [...]

Posted in Hiking Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Mountain Voices: Interviews With Locals and Visitors, Video | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
“An Unimproved Work of God…”

May 29, 2008 – 11:47 am

Back in the 1920’s, logging companies were stripping these mountains bare and one of the motivations for creating a national park in the Smokies was to save what was left of the ancient forests east of the Mississippi.
Horace Kephart, a local writer and avid supporter of a national park, called the old-growth in the Smokies [...]

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GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
Smokies in a Different Light

May 27, 2008 – 3:02 pm

Here’s Donna Eaton’s wonderful photo of the famous Smokies haze taken from Morton’s Overlook during a thunderstorm.  Has a fire and brimstone look to it, doesn’t it?  Donna said the storm was making her cringe.  But thank goodness nothing could keep her from holding that big metal lightning rod in her hands and clicking the [...]

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