“The dreamy, blue haze that ever hovers over the mountains softens all outlines, lends a mirage-like effect of great distance to objects that are but a few miles off while those farther removed grow more and more intangible, until finally the skyline blends with the sky itself.” Horace Kephart

It is becoming an annual tradition now, where Cathie and I head to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. In 2018, we went twice. I wrote about the first trip, from April, but didn’t get a chance to write about the Thanksgiving excursion. Having just come back from there now, I have decided to just write a little about the park, not necessarily what I have done there, but the experience of being there.

It’s one of the few places where you can be in a heavy, tourist area like Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg, but a short drive later, you are off the grid. Twenty minutes out of these heavily populated areas, you have no cellular signal. And while it is the most heavily visited parks, outpacing all of the others by quite a substantial margin each year, you can find yourself away from others. As primarily a landscape and nature photographer, hopefully it’s not hard to understand why I’m drawn to this place. After all, the park owes its existence to photographers.

I had the chance to see the park in late fall, over Thanksgiving last year. There were a few days where there was a heavy frost in the valleys. The park still held tremendous beauty, even if a little stark, with winter about to set in.

Prior to November, my trips had been in spring, although they were after the wildflowers had bloomed. This time, we planned our trip to be closer to bloom. The forests and valleys were awakening, we had timed our trip well this time. The day I arrived was quite rainy, and the rain continued the first full day in the park last Monday. As a result, the streams, rivers and waterfalls were raging. This offered us a myriad of photo opportunities during the week, which we took full advantage of.

Mostly, this past week was about detaching from day-to-day life. I didn’t come back with a tremendous amount of photos. I tried to make the photos count, though. And I also wanted to just be in the moment. Hearing the streams running. Walking out onto the balcony of our cabin with a cup of coffee in the morning, with the only sounds being birds chirping and wind blowing in the trees. It was sublime. It was a fantastic week, as was the week we spent there in November. And while I might not be able to return to the Smokies this year, I will be back, to the back of beyond.