Meet some of the members of the park’s Nordic Ski Patrol, a volunteer group that serves as a contact point for visitors using Clingmans Dome Road during winter. Among their many responsibilities are reporting weather conditions, providing cold weather emergency medical services, and assisting with search and rescue. Click here or on the photo [...]
The year has certainly started off with a chill! Click here or on the photo to check out how Cataract Falls looked after two weeks of freezing temperatures!
On one of the clearest days in the Smokies, what could be better than conquering the Chimney Tops? Click the photo below to watch a quick video about the ins and outs of climbing one of the most popular hikes in the Smokies… and about making it to the very, very top.
Click here or on [...]
Mari and a hundred of her closest friends see a bear! Check it out.
You’ll love to see Randy Ogle making a rocking chair like the one Aden Carver made.
One of the Great Smoky Mountains’ most remarkable residents was Aden Carver, born at Smokemont in 1844. Carver lived to be 101 years old. He was a farmer, craftsman, millwright, and deacon of the Oconaluftee Baptist Church.
He lived through 5 [...]
It was an ambitious hike: 23 miles up one of the highest mountains in the Smokies, to a legendary spot: Rocky Top!
Don’t ever mix electricity and water… unless you’re a professional with the national park’s fisheries division and have a very thick pair of rubber gloves.
Whenever I visit Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, I think of my granddaddy: as a park naturalist in the Smokies back in the 1950s, he was in charge of setting up the motor nature trail and directed the preservation of old homesites in Cades Cove and Oconaluftee, too.
To take a quick, car-free tour of the [...]