MY MOUNTAINS: July 2012

Friday, July 27, 2012

WHERE OF WHERE IS "THE COOL-OFF"????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixf72U0AXOA&list=UUeC5NtU80c5t368iM9kBvLA&index=5&feature=plcp

Friday, July 20, 2012

WATERFALLS, CASCADES AND LITTLE DRIPS
in The Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Thursday, July 19, 2012

GSMNP storm update:
from http://www.nps.gov/grsm/index.htm

Temporary Closures Follow road status at http://twitter.com/smokiesroadsnps
• Parson Branch Road
• Chimney Tops Trail will be closed Mondays through Thursdays, until October 18, for trail rehabilitation. more information...
• Foothills Parkway (unfinished section) - the entire unfinished section between Walland and Wears Valley is now closed to all public use until 2015 due to construction.

Friday, July 13, 2012

GSMNP STORM DAMAGE UPDATES AVAILABLE:

A severe storm has resulted in the closure of several park roads and trails.

http://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/temproadclose.htm

Damage day after storm in area around
Cades Cove and Little River Road/Cades Cove Road "Y" area

BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY SCENES

I spent well over 2 years up and down and throughout The Blue Ridge Parkway as a volunteer staff member of Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Here are just a few of thousands of memories:

Price Lake

1 of hundreds of overlooks

wild azaleas along the parkway

even an intersection can be pretty

1 of many log houses and homesteads

another example of a homestead

Price Lake at midday

Mabry Mill sits right beside the parkway

Lynn Viaduct...an engineering marvel

a fence display

Otter Lake

Doughton Park

What a difference...when it comes to the view in The Smokies. Here are 2 webcam shots from the Look Rock webcam on The Foothills Parkway, a part of the GSMNP:
http://www.nature.nps.gov/air/webcams/parks/grsmcam/grsmcam.cfm

July 1...visibility less than 25 miles

January 6...visibility less than 129 miles

from: http://www.nps.gov/grsm/naturescience/air-quality.htm
Shrinking ViewsViews from scenic overlooks at Great Smoky Mountains National Park have been seriously degraded over the last 50 years by human-made pollution. Since 1948, based on regional airport records, average visibility in the southern Appalachians has decreased 40% in winter and 80% in summer.
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The Smokies got their name from the blue haze that hangs over the mountains, mostly from evaporation of moisture from the intense plant life. Or, as explaned on:
\http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/opt/air/blue.rxml

"As tiny hydrocarbon particles released by vegetation chemically react with ozone molecules, they produce particles that selectively scatter blue light, giving the mountains their blue appearance. "

Aerial view of The Smokies in beauiful fall colors
from "Pilot's Pilot" Pete Michaels Lancellotti

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjEWbTZZ35s&list=UUFyX6k4ZCxfLa9g72msyXmQ&index=9&feature=plcp

used with permission

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Cable Mill - in the fall

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amMI_pjG6hQ&feature=youtu.be

A VISIT TO CABLE MILL IN CADES COVE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba7a8urXpQM

‘A secret little place’: Smokies’ Upper Tremont Road offers beauty, solitude

By Dick Byrd Daily Times Correspondent
Sssssshhhhhh. Don’t tell anybody about this story. It’s a secret among a few people who like solitude while fishing, or hiking, or viewing waterfalls, or photographing wildflowers, or enjoying the Smokies without the crowds.
There is a place in Blount County that is smack in the middle of the most-visited national park in the entire nation, but it also out-of-the-way, hidden, and otherwise “away from it all.”
It’s called Upper Tremont Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Getting there is easy: Just drive through Townsend into the Park, turn right toward Cades Cove, then, a few hundred yards later, turn left at the sign for Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont.
You will be on a 2-mile paved road following the Middle Prong of the Little River. This is known as “Lower” Tremont Road. It is pretty, serene, a very good location for fishing, and has the beginning of several popular hiking and horseback riding trails. It is also the location of the institute dedicated to outdoor environmental education.
But this story is about “Upper” Tremont road — beyond GSMIT — beyond the more popular spots, beyond the paved road.
Upper Tremont Road begins where the pavement ends. Upper Tremont Road begins where most of the visitors stop. Upper Tremont Road, to those who know it, is another world apart from the crowds, the timid tourists, those people afraid to venture beyond where the asphalt stops.
This is a gravel road. It still follows the Middle Prong. It still has lots of wildflowers. It still leads to what those who know consider a terrific trail head. It also has waterfalls, an extremely interesting history, and a way to “get away from it all” right here in Blount County.
The Tremont area was once a key logging area for the Little River Lumber Company of Col. Townsend fame. It was also the location of logging towns, a once-popular hotel, and even a Girl Scout camp. And before that part of it was known as Walker Valley, home to the pioneers now made famous in books and articles.
Driving to the end of the 3-mile gravel portion of Tremont Road takes you to a loop parking area. There are tree-shaded parking spaces around the loop. From there it’s just across the walking bridge to the Middle Prong Trail trail head. And from there you can connect with thousands of miles of trails: you can hike to Maine or Georgia on the Appalachian Trail or to the North Carolina coast on the Mountain To Sea Trail.
Or, you can just take a couple of hours enjoying the wildflowers, the streams, the trees, the wilderness, and the quiet solitude of The Great Smokies.
John Bays of Lenoir City knows Upper Tremont Road. He fishes there several times a month. Bays retired to this area of East Tennessee five years ago after searching the nation for a place to relocate. He likes being so close to the national park while also being able to “take to the lake” any time he wishes. When asked if he’d like more people to know about Upper Tremont Road, Bays said he’d like to keep it quiet but, then, agreed it’s probably too great to keep to himself.
Fishing is fine
He says the fishing is fine on Upper Tremont Road. He was asked if he catches rainbow trout and answered: “A few.”
And asked if he ever catches any of the native brook trout, he responded: “One small one.”
“One small one?” we replied.
“Small, small!” he retorted. You know how fishermen are about their favorite fishing spots.
Bays did admit the trees overhang the stream so much that it has a two-fold effect: it shades the stream keeping it a bit cooler, but it also catches your fishing line if you’re not careful. There goes a fisherman trying again to protect his favorite fishing hole.
Takes kids hiking
Samantha Andersen also loves Upper Tremont Road. The Maryville insurance agent takes her two kids, ages 12 and 7, hiking at the end of the road several times a month during spring and summer.
“They absolutely love it,” Andersen said. “We always pack a picnic and we stop at a nice spot with big rocks in the water. They like to go out on the rocks in the water and we sit and have our lunch. And then they love to play in the water. There are really a lot of nice spots to do that.” “The great thing about the trail is it’s (not) Cades Cove so nobody knows about it,” she said, laughing. “I can’t believe you’re going to tell everybody. It’s beautiful, and it’s a great spot. You should share that with everybody that loves nature. My kids get so much from being out in nature. It’s amazing. They’re like different kids.”
So Upper Tremont Road, while being unnoticed by many, is also “that secret little place” to some. And it’s right here in Blount County ready for the finding, the fishing, the hiking, the picnicking, the flower looking, the leaf peeping, and the sightseeing. But, ssshhh, don’t tell anybody else. Let’s keep this place to ourselves.
. They’re like different kids.”

So Upper Tremont Road, while being unnoticed by many, is also “that secret little place” to some. And it’s right here in Blount County ready for the finding, the fishing, the hiking, the picnicking, the flower looking, the leaf peeping, and the sightseeing. But, ssshhh, don’t tell anybody else. Let’s keep this place to ourselves.

A HIDDEN GEM IN THE SMOKIES

CADES COVE’S CABLE MILL

By Dick Byrd corrspondent The Daily Times
In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park there is a beautiful cove that once was the home to a pioneer community of farmers, families and homespun industry. Cades Cove is now one of the most visited places in the national park, with its log cabins, barns, old churches, open fields, wildlife, creeks, trails, vistas, a big campground and a shaded picnic ground. You can drive through the cove on a one-way paved road in your car or on your bicycle.
One of the special places in Cades Cove is an operating gristmill. Daily from April through October is grinds corn for you to watch and for you to purchase. It is operated by The Great Smoky Mountain Association. Here’s what volunteer miller Gary Haaby says about running the mill: “You’d bring me your corn and your wheat and I’d turn them into flour so you could make your bread. No grocery stores in the good ol’ days. In summertime when it’s hot weather I’d be seeing you down here two or three times a month. You just mill it as you need it. No refrigerator, freezer or Ziploc bags.”
Haaby is a retired school teacher. He lives in nearby Townsend, Tennessee and volunteers as one of the millers.
This is how Haaby talks about the mill:
“Back a hundred years ago you’d see six or seven of these mills. There were about 700 people living in the cove. The mill has been here for 143 years. It usually ran on Saturdays. And the miller’s gona get paid. I’m gona take an eighth of your corn and a sixth of your wheat. And you’ve got to tell me what you want to do with it. I can do it fine, course, cracked…whatever you want. In summertime you’d want it courser because it keeps better that way.”
“You’d bring your shelled corn in to me. I don’t shell corn. That’s something you’re kids’ll be doing at home. That’s why we had kids. I’m gona drop it in the hopper. It’s all gravity fed. Gristmills…all mills are going to be tall buildings because they run on gravity. Inside there is a millstone called a runner stone. And below that is called a bed stone and that’s stationary. The corn is cut between the stones, which don’t touch. Corn goes between the stones and falls into grooves. Some of that corn is sticking up out of the grooves so the top stone shears it off. And the grooves get shallower toward the edges so the farther out it goes the finer it cuts.”
The miller says every four or five years the stones come out and are sharpened. These stones have been on the mill for its entire 143 year life. Outside are more millstones. They came from nearby mills. The only mill out of 6 or 7 once in the cove is this Cable Mill, rebuilt by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the early 1930’s. Now it operates for all to see.
One visitor recent visitor from Illinois said he has been bringing his family to The Smokies since 1998 but this was his first look at Cable Mill. He said: “I’ve been a welder for 23 years and to go back a hundred and 43 years…the people were a lot more clever and resourceful than we give them credit.”
Miller Haaby says he gets a lot of crazy questions. “They think the mill is a water treatment facility. The think it’s a way to clean water. But that’s fine. That’s why we’re here. Most folks that come in want to know how it works. But I try to make sure they know what it’s for before they know how it works because that’s the key to it.” He also points out that besides grinding corn and wheat the mill was used to mill lumber. Haaby says the timbers in the nearby farmhouse were cut at Cable Mill.
The booklet “Gristmills of the Smokies” published by the Association states that “Cable Mill’s power comes from Mill Creek, although Cable dug a connecting channel to Forge Creek so that when water levels were low he could tap both streams. A low dam channels water toward the head of the millrace where the first of several watergates allows the miller to regular the flow of the water. The last watergate, on the flume, can be operated by a long lever from within the mill.”
The big waterwheel is 11 feet tall and 5 feet wide. It is a classic overshot wheel used on fast mountain streams. Undershot wheels, used on slow flat water streams, turned as water flowed past the bottom of the wheel. Overshot wheels are much more energy efficient, so even 143 years ago Mr. Cable was thinking “green.”
When asked how he eats his cornmeal Haaby says: “My wife uses it to make cornbread. She fries stuff. I had a heart attack and so I don’t eat a lot of that stuff. But she does. Right in front of me she’ll eat it.”
You can learn more from Mr. Haaby and the other miller at Cable Mill. Stop by any day through October. Listen and learn. Ask questions. It’s a lesson in history, in lore, in Blount County long before grocery stores, microwave dinners, or any of our “take it for granted” ways of life.

Recipe for SPOONBREAD

2 ½ c. boiling water
2 c. cornmeal
2 egg yokes
2 egg whites, stiffly beaten
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 Tbsp melted butter
1 ½ c. buttermilk

Stir cornmeal gradually into boiling water; let cool.
Add beaten egg yolks, baking power and salt.
Also add melted butter and the buttermilk.
Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites.
Bake in greased baking dish at 425 degrees for 45 minutes.
Serves 8

recipe from: "Gristmills of the Smokies”
Published by Great Smoky Mountains Association

THE STORE AT TREMONT

By Dick Byrd

Between March 1st and late May the 11-mile Cades Cove Loop Road in The Great Smoky Mountains National park will be closed to cars, bicycles and hikers for reconstruction. During that time the campground store, campground, picnic area and horseback riding stable will remain open. The popular store at the Cable Mill area will also be closed during this reconstruction period.

But a similar store at Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont will be open. The Tremont store and visitors center are open seven days a week (weekdays 8 to 5, weekends 9 to 5). GSMIT is located two miles from the “Tremont Y” where the Little River Road and the Cades Cove approach road split just inside the park from Townsend. To get to the GSMIT store and visitors center simply turn at the Tremont “Y” toward Cades Cove and turn left a few hundred feet toward the Cove. Follow the signs to Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont….located about two miles into Walker Valley from the Cove approach road….traveling along a beautiful drive next to the Middle Prong of the Little River.

GSMIT store manager Gary Carpenter says he is stocked with most of the popular items found in the other retail outlets in the national park, as well as items specific to Tremont. Items for sale include apparel, books, maps, and convenience items such as postcards, stamps, cameras and film.

GSMIT and The Walker Valley have many hiking trails available, and fishing along the stream is popular (national park regulations apply). The GSMIT store and visitors center make a good starting or ending point to your outing in the area. And at the visitors center or on-line you can check out the on-going list of classes and learning experiences, both indoors and out, available at Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont (www.gsmit.org).

Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont is a private 501(c)(3) non-profit organization within Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Since 1969, Tremont has provided in-depth experiences to over half a million people of all ages through residential educational programs designed to nurture appreciation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, celebrate diversity, and foster stewardship.

some scenes from CADES COVE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5NnwNYsTGU&list=UUeC5NtU80c5t368iM9kBvLA&index=9&feature=plcp

TAKING PICTURES WITH YOUR MIND

By Dick Byrd

We came to Gatlinburg and the Smokies almost every summer as the kids were growing up. And, being kids, while in the car in route to or while in East Tennessee they’d often be reading a comic book or playing with a toy while riding in the back seat. But my wife and I wanted them to witness the beauty, the history, the wonder of the Smokies. So we told them to put away the comic books and the toys, look out the windows, and “take pictures with your mind.”

So they did this…riding through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, through Gatlinburg, while walking along the Parkway, inside the shops, in the restaurants, poolside at the motel, playing miniature golf, or wading in the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River. Little did we know then that our kids, now grown, would call on those “pictures in their minds” in later years…at times of stress, times of want and at other times when they just needed a quick break from the affairs of the day. We didn’t know they called on those pictures until, as adults, they admitted how wonderful those “pictures in their minds” had become…how useful…how essential to their everyday lives.

Oh, we took photos on those trips: the kids in front of the Wishing Well gift shop, at Fanny Farkle’s playing games, getting a free candy cane at McCutchens Candy Shop, riding the Sky Lift, wading in the river. But, in later times, once they had kids of their own, they tell us they still call on those “pictures in their minds” from their family vacations to Gatlinburg and the Smokies and they use those memories each and every day.

the Byrd Family at Newfound Gap in GSMNP 1979

Now my wife and I are in our mid-60’s. Our children have children. And some of those children have children. Our kids are spread out across much of the Eastern U.S. And my wife and I, after all those years coming to the Smokies each summer finally decided to move to the area. Now the two of us can visit the park whenever we want. We can drive through Cades Cove, take a picnic lunch to the Chimney’s Picnic Grounds, let the breeze blow across us at Newfound Gap or stroll a quiet walkway. We can also venture into Gatlinburg for lunch or dinner when we want. We can sit for a spell on the benches in The Village and just watch the people go by. We can walk along the Parkway among all of the “visitors, basking in the moment and think back to all of those earlier times…times with Suzi, Brad and Bryan. Times that meant so much to us then and still mean so much to us now.