October Color
99'
This Site is following a short October Vacation in the mountains of North
Carolina and Tennessee. Check back here often to see updates during
the week of October 17 th. These pictures are all shot with an Olympus D600-L digital camera and are being uploaded each night. Forgive the poorer resolution of the copies that are saved here. The resolution and size have been reduced dramatically so that the images will load fast. The originals in the Computer are much better.
Morning - Clear, Cold.
We got out early this morning. Kathleen woke up first and looked outside, pleased to see the little dipper in the dark sky. Since we we knew we'd have sunlight to shoot by, we got on the road right away. We headed up to the Gap between Gatlinburg and Cherokee. When we reached the gap, we were above the clouds. The sun was just rising and we were shooting towards the sun, but it was beautiful.
We only shot a few images from the gap and decided to head up towards Cligman's Dome, one of the highest peaks in the east. It was amazing up here. It looked like a blanket of clouds covering the entire area below, and you could see a very large area. Beautiful. (Jack said it was alot like the view from an airplane, except that here he could set up his tripod and shoot pictures.)
After a visit to town, it was back on the road. East on Rt. 321, to The Foothills Parkway that connects to Rt 40. This a short, but wonderful drive and we're planning to shoot there on Friday.
We took Exit 20 on the N.C. side of Rt 40 and took an immediate turn onto Cattail Creek Dr. We ignored detour signs that we saw along the way, because this road is only one of two ways into Cataloochee Valley. About three miles from Rt. 40, we came upon our second old Jeep.
Shortly after this, the road lost it's paving and began winding endlessly up the mountain. We had read that this place was a bit harder to get to and more out of the way than Cades Cove -- one of those great understatements. I can just imagine how many people turn back, thinking that this couldn't possibly be the way to a park. Still, the drive was very nice and we proceeded onward and upward.
Near the top, we reached a very simple entrance and the road continued to wind back down. We love driving through woods like this.
Down below we reached the valley. Cataloochee was first settled by the Cherokee, who called it Gad-ah-lu-tsi, which means "standing tall in a row" and refers to the many very tall, very straight trees that line the ridges of the valley. After the Revolutionary War, white settlers began coming to the valley, gradually displacing the native inhabitants. By the early 1800's, most of the Cherokee were gone, and the settlers continued calling the valley their version of the Cherokee name - or, often, just Chatalooch. The irony is that, in the 1920's, the states of Tennessee and North Carolina came to the conclusion that this area should become a park, to preserve for future generations the sense of what the valley was like "in the old days." So, the governments bought up the properties, displacing the decendents of the people who drove the Cherokee away. (Sometimes karmic cycles really are apparent.)
We first stopped at the Palmer House and exhibit. Inside, we found many layers of old wallpaper hanging in tatters from the walls. On some walls you can see where they used newspapers or catalog pages on the walls before they added the wallpaper. We found one piece dated March 1909.
The drive through this park is wonderful. When we were in Cades Cove, the traffic was bumper-to- bumper; here there was hardly anyone else on the road and there is more variety in the landscape, as well.
As you drive in this park, you find that there are a few side roads you can take. We took one that led to the Horse Camp. I can't tell you how many horse trailers there were in here because there were too many to count. I really wonder how they got them up through all of those winding, unpaved, one-lane roads to get here. I met guys here from Northern Florida, South Carolina, Penn... they agreed that the road is tough, but differed on whether they'd like to see it improved. One guy, with an especially long trailer, said that he could barely get it up the road. The guy from Florida doesn't want to make it easier for other people to find. For Horse lovers who want a place to camp.. this looks like a great place.
We're going back here Friday as well, maybe we'll get some pictures of the Big horse trailers.
One last look at the color on the drive back.
