On June 28 we took a day trip on highway 411 across the Smoky Mountain ridge.The northern entrance is in Gatlinburg, now a crowded tourist town. The photos are in the old Canon Power Shot S2 IS. I was hoping for a clear day with blue skies, but instead the day was typical of our days there – overcast skies with occasional rain and rare partly sunny periods. The elevation at Gatlinburg is 1289 ft., at Newfound Gap, 5,049 ft., so there was quite a climb in the 15 miles to Newfound Gap
Chestnut trees were the trees most prized by the timber companies cutting in the Smokys beginning around 1900. Humans, bears and deer thrived on their nuts dropped in the fall, but a blight began killing the trees in 1904 prompting the timber cutters to harvest them before they died of the blight. Now an insect is killing the fir trees, leaving standing dead trees throughout the mountains.
Newfound Gap parking lot.
The Appalachian Trail crosses the Newfound Gap. It is only 1972 miles from here to its northern end in Maine.
Yes, that is our road seen from the Newfound Gap parking lot. We took the Clingmans Dome spur road to the large parking lot there at roughly 6300 ft.
This sign explains what one sees if one walks the half mile up a seep paved path (330 ft. elevation gain) to the observation tower. Jo took the walk and the two pictures below. Due to my COPD, I stayed at the visitors center chatting with the docent.
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Near the bottom of the mountain we stopped at another mill. This one built in 1898 was more sophisticated than that at Cades Cove. This one was powered by a water turbine. Its rpms were controlled by the quantity of water run through the turbine. When we there there it was grinding corn at 100 rpm. Jo bought a 5 lb package of whole wheat flour ground there. We will try it in pancakes!
We continued south to the bottom of the mountain at Cherokee, TN on the Cherokee reservation. It is developed as a tourist town with rides, tubing on the river and souvenir shops.
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