Archive for the ‘Smoky Mountains National Park’ Category
There are so many really really neat things to see in the Smokies. All the great lookouts along the side of the road allow you to pull off the road to feast your eyes on the views without running off the side of a mountain while looking. :O)) The views are absolutely breathtaking, even with the smokey haze that rests amongst the mountains.
From your Asheville vacation cabin, take I-40 heading West. As you drive along the road, notice when you get past Waynesville you can actually see the shift from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Smokies. The drive West is gorgeous, the vegetation lush and the ascending and the descending and the twists in the road increasing in frequency. The road runs through the Smokies. Get off anywhere and you are standing in Smoky the Bear country.
Several animals are being reintroduced into the Smokies successfully. One is the Elk. Elk once roamed the southern Appalachian Mountains and elsewhere in the eastern United States. They were eliminated from the region by over-hunting and loss of habitat. The last elk in North Carolina was believed to have been killed in the late 1700s. In Tennessee, the last elk was killed in the mid-1800s. By 1900, the population of elk in North America dropped to the point that hunting groups and other conservation organizations became concerned the species was headed for extinction. The experimental release of Elk into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park began in February, 2001 with the importation of 25 Elk from the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area along the Tennessee-Kentucky border. I am happy to report the experiment in the Smokies has been a total success and the Elk are thriving and reproducing and the herd is growing.
It’s not far at all from the Asheville cabin you stay at. Simply get on I-40 going towards Tennessee and there will be many opportunities to exit to get into the park all along the road. Once you get beyond Waynesville, you can feel the change from the Blue Ridge to the Smokies. It’s quite interesting.
If you would rather sit inside an air-conditioned vehicle while touring the Smokies, navigating the loop at Cades Cove is a must. Here you might see the two most prolific mammals in the park, the white tail deer and black bear. Other common sightings are wild turkey and the ground hog, and other wildlife as well. When visiting Cades Cove, you will drive along an 11-mile loop that follows many of the curves and courses that settlers forged years ago. Cades Cove is a lush valley surrounded by mountains and one of the most popular destinations in the Great Smokies. The Cove takes visitors into another time, experiencing history in each building and wilderness around every turn.
It’s not that far from your Asheville Cabin, just about an hour beyond Cherokee. It’s a day trip for sure but it is so worth it. Just to see the wilderness and the wildlife in all this undisturbed beauty is so exciting. The trail of cars often have to stop so that the wild animals can cross the road.