Great Smoky Mountains Hosts Stargazing Event
The universe is waiting for you in Cades Cove!
5 Great Smoky Mountain Fathers Day Ideas!
There is no end to the fun on Fathers Day in the Smokies!
5 Great Smoky Mountain Fathers Day Ideas! Fathers Day in The Great Smoky Mountains is right around the corner on Sunday, June 17, 2018. The Great Smoky Mountains offer so many ways to celebrate Dad’s special day. If your Dad prefers, hiking, biking, fishing, great food or a cold brewski, the forests, towns and valleys located around the park have you covered.
Mountain coasters are a great way to get his adrenaline flowing. The fun begins with a tow to the the top of a mountain and then the rest is up to you and gravity! You control the speed and intensity of your ride. There are multiple coasters in Sevier County for your dad to choose from. Goats On The Roof is easy to find on Wears Valley road in Pigeon Forge and so much fun. If the entire family is not feeling the need for speed they will find spending time with friendly goats is not too “baaaaaaad!”
Does your dad have a hearty appetite? The Smokies are a great place to sit down for a delicious meal. One of the most sought after foods in the mountains is Rainbow Trout. The iconic Smoky Mountain Trout House has been serving up good eats for decades and is easy to find on the strip in Gatlinburg. Trout can be fried crispy, baked with lemon or anyway you can imagine it. The HeySmokies trout eating team loves the trout almandine with a couple of slices of lemon on the side. No matter what your taste buds have a hankerin’ for you won’t leave hungry!
Satisfy Dad’s sweet tooth in the Smokies. Sooner or later we all need a little sugar pick me up and the selection of sweet treats in the Smokies is sensational. Take a stroll down the strip in Gatlinburg to the Ole’ Smoky Candy Kitchen. The entire family will enjoy watching the vintage taffy stretching machine roll out sweet treats that have brought a smile to families faces for decades.
Saddle up for some Smoky Mountain trail riding! What better way to experience the Smokies than riding a trail with a personal guide. Jayell Ranch in Sevierville has miles of trails and the expert guides you need to have a safe and exciting equestrian experience. The view from the saddle is like no other in the mountains and those that give it a try, return to ride again and again.
Take a hike! When it is time to stretch your legs the possibilities are limitless in the Smokies. With over 900 miles of trails you can choose from a walk in a lush hardwood cove forest in Greenbrier or a high elevation hike on the the famous Appalachian Trail. Many say that hiking is the perfect way to celebrate with dad. You never know what you will find when you step into the wild lands of the Smokies. It is not unusual to see bear, turkeys or maybe even an elk or two. Remember to take only photographs and leave only footprints.
Bonus tip: After spending an awesome day in the Smokies, when the sun is setting low and you want to make sure your dad knows how important he is to you take a moment to give him a great big HeySmokies bear hug! They are free and possibly the best Fathers Day gift ever invented.
Great Smoky Mountain Mingus Mill Volunteer Opportunity
Come on down to Mingus Mill and lend a hand!
Great Smoky Mountain Mingus Mill Volunteer Opportunity. National Park officials are asking for volunteers to provide informational tours of the historic Mingus Mill.
The mill is located one half mile north of the Oconaluftee Visitor Center near Cherokee, North Carolina. Participants will assist in educating national park visitors about the general role of milling in the Smoky Mountains. The unique turbine wheel at Mingus Mill is a special feature of interest. Instead of turning a wheel like the Cable Mill in popular Cades Cove. The mingus mill funnels water into a race which rises nearly forty feet in the air. From there it plunges down a box shaft and turns the turbine, which “in turn” powers the mill.
Mingus Mill, built in 1886, offers visitors a rare look into the inner workings of a mill that custom ground everything from corn to wheat or rye. This turbine-driven mill would custom grind cornmeal or flour in a fraction of the time needed by other types of mills. The efficiency and central location of the mill made it into a popular meeting place for local communities like Bradley town.
Volunteers will work closely with Great Smoky Mountains Association employees. Each volunteer is asked to work at least one, four-hour shift per week from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the peak visitation season from April through November. Interested persons will be provided orientation and training before beginning at the mill.
New volunteers are required to attend training on Friday, March 23, 2018 from 9:00 am until 3:00 pm. The training will be held at the Oconaluftee Administration Building near Cherokee, NC. A lunch break will be in the schedule. Please plan to bring a bag lunch.
If interested in this exciting volunteer opportunity please call to reserve a space for training. For questions or to receive more information, please contact Park Resource Education Ranger Florie Takaki by phone at 828-497-1906 or by email at florie_takaki@nps.gov.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park Welcomes Record Number of Visitors in 2017
Great Smoky Mountains National Park Welcomes Record Number of Visitors in 2017. The Smoky Mountain special events for the second year in a row, welcomed over eleven million visitors. In 2017, a record 11,338,894 people visited the national park, which is a
Any entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park is your gateway to adventure!
slight increase, 0.2%, over 2016. The park continued to see the highest visitation in July which was followed by October and June. Monthly visitation records were set during the shoulder season months of January, February, April, September, and November in 2017 which follows a pattern of the park seeing increased year-round visitation.
“We strive each year to provide exceptional services to the visitors who come to enjoy the Smokies,” said Superintendent Cassius Cash. “With increasing visitation across seasons, this does not come without challenges. I am proud of the employees who work hard each day to meet these challenges, along with the support of our volunteers and partners who collectively help us care for this incredibly special place.”
In 2017, over 2,800 park volunteers donated over 115,000 hours of service. These volunteers provided much needed help across the park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent, Cassius Cash, with HeySmokies owner, Brad Knight.
including trail maintenance, invasive plant removal, and providing visitor information along trails, at visitor centers, and in campgrounds. Visitors spent nearly 400,000 nights camping in the park which was slightly down from 2016, but above the 5-year average. The park offers 9 front country campgrounds and 100 backcountry campsites for visitors to enjoy across the park.
Notably in 2017, the park hosted the largest special event in park history. The western half of the park provided prime viewing to experience totality for approximately 2 minutes during the Great American Total Solar Eclipse. Thousands of visitors participated in ranger-led events on the weekend leading up to the eclipse on Monday, August 21. Over 15,600 people attended eclipse events offered at Cades Cove, Clingmans Dome, Oconaluftee Visitor Center, and Sugarlands Visitor Center. Over 47,000 visitors entered the park from the four main entrances to view the eclipse on August 21, marking a 64% increase in visitation for that day over 2016. Another 26,000 people watched the live broadcast of the Clingmans Dome event in partnership with NASA and another 6 million people watched the event online from across the world via the NASA 360 broadcast.
For additional Great Smoky Mountains National Park Special Events visit NPS.gov.
Smoky Mountain Ironweed
Giant ironweed (Vernonia gigantea) is one of the most striking and beautiful wildflowers in the HeySmokies.com region!
Smoky Mountain Ironweed is a beautiful flowering plant commonly found in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. If a hike takes you through a sunny meadow in the Smokies during the late summer or autumn, you are likely to see a tall graceful wildflower with a head of deep purple flowers and bright green spear-shaped leaves growing along the meadow’s wet margins, often accompanied by goldenrod. This will be ironweed. You might also see it growing along roadsides and in pastures in Cades Cove, largely unnoticed until it begins to bloom in late July, with flowers continuing into late October. Orange and brown skipper butterflies are also likely to be flitting about the plant’s flowers, feeding on its nectar, which they greatly favor. But as you approach ironweed and look more closely, you’ll find that its beauty disguises its truly tough nature.
First, ironweed is tall. The most common variety in the Smokies, giant ironweed (Vernonia gigantea), grows up to 9 feet in height, though 7 feet is more normal. Next, it has a coarse, stiff, rather thick stem, reddish in color, that easily supports the plant’s great height and gives it its name. At its base, the plant forms a clump of stems that hold tenaciously to the soil mostly by way of a long tap root, making it difficult for farmers to eradicate the plant from their pastures, where its toxicity poses a threat to livestock. (Native Americans, however, used the dried tap root in a bitter drink to combat fevers and purify the blood.) The plant propagates itself over an extensive area through the thousands of seeds it produces each autumn. A single plant can produce up to 19,000 seeds.
While farmers view ironweed as a pest, gardeners favor it as a background plant for butterfly and native plant gardens, especially when partnered with sunflowers, milkweed, or hollyhocks. It is relatively easy to grow in East Tennessee, requiring a sunny spot, some compost to amend the clay soil, regular watering until established, and mulch to prevent drying out. Gardeners may wish to consider New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) as their ornamental of choice instead of giant ironweed since it is a more prolific bloomer.
Ironweed is easy to find this time of year no matter what part of the Smokies you visit. Keep your eyes peeled for it’s showy blooms in Sugarlands, Oconaluftee, Cataloochee, Greenbrier, Cosby, Smokemont, and Tremont.
HeySmokies.com is honored to have Carl Parsons as a contributing writer. Carl is Deputy Editor for Storyteller Magazine, a member of the Writers’ Guild of Sevier County, TN, and a Tennessee Master Gardener.
Sources: GardenKnowhow,
Ironweed, and Ohio State.
