Surprising facts about black bears and their cubs in the winter months It’s commonly thought that all black bears (both male and female) spend the entire winter sleeping in a dark cave, surviving off a bunch of stored-up body fat. So why do we see so many bears actively roaming alongside deer and elk around the Cades Cove Loop in
There’s an old springhouse in the Smokies that looks like something straight out of a fairy tale If you’re like me, and you’ve lived in the Smoky Mountains for a considerable amount of time, there’s a chance you’ve heard about The House of Fairies – an unusual moss-covered structure located off the beaten path in the Smoky Mountains. But now
It’s not forest fires or falling leaves, it’s an invasive bug There’s a war going on in the Great Smoky Mountains. On one side is an army of invaders disturbing the native flora and leaving an array of sick trees in their wake. These menacing creatures in the Smoky Mountains are the hemlock wooly adelgids, an insect native to East Asia.
When Halloween approaches, our thoughts tend to shift to candy, costumes and pumpkin spice. But there are places in the world – and in these mountains – where the old ways haven’t entirely been lost. There is a chill from these spirits and their stories that has lingered from those who have passed tragically or with unfinished business. With a
Gatlinburg sits on the Western edge of the Smoky Mountains. That means there is a significant change in elevation moving East to West from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park toward Pigeon Forge, Knox County and the rest of the Tennessee Valley. Since an average of 85 inches of rain falls in the high country each year, the elevation and
I interviewed a guy from East Tennessee once whose “thing” was mountain climbing. He wasn’t a particularly rich guy, just a guy who loved the thrill of climbing up high in the tallest mountains in the world. When we spoke, he’d just come home from a successful climb up Everest. He tried to describe to me the pull, the attraction,
I’ve visited the Great Smoky Mountains National Park many times, and one of my favorite spots to have a picnic is the Chimneys Picnic Area. It’s in close competition with Metcalf Bottoms. This is partly due to its idyllic setting on the banks of the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River. Over the years, I’ve found that the soothing
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park launched its Park it Forward program on March 1, 2023. The new program is meant to help generate revenue to improve visitor services and address maintenance needs. While the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been historically free to enter, visitation has put a strain on management and upkeep. For example, the park experienced its
There’s a war at work in the high country along the Tennessee-North Carolina border. The war began before there was a Tennessee and before there were Carolinas. In fact, the war was waging before European settlers set foot in the Americas. The war began when tectonic plates met and pushed the mountains up out of the subsurface. The victory has
I woke up early on a recent Sunday morning to the familiar rattling of my cell phone.I shook the cobwebs away and reached out, wondering what vastly important fantasy football alert I had just received. Instead, I was met with an image that quickly grabbed my attention. It was a structure fire in downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The pictures showed flame