Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Little River Again

Later one afternoon, I was able to return to the Park and get a few more pictures along the Little River Gorge Road. And I know there is already a whole other post here with photos of this river. But these are different!! See, those other ones were taken on a rainy morning. These ones were taken on a sunny day. So totally different and totally worth a whole other post with more pictures, right?

The weather during most of our stay in the Smokies was bright and sunny. Which is nice if you want to have a pleasant vacation with your family, but not so great for taking landscape photos. But in the evening, the sun drops below the mountains and most of the river is left in the shade. Which is really helpful for someone wanting to run around taking pictures.

I drove down the Little River Gorge Road and made a stop just upriver from The Sinks. Here the river crashed and thrashed around several large boulders.



And in the background, the distant trees were bathed in amber light from the evening sun.



And then looking the other direction. The river passes below the bridge and then barrels into The Sinks.





I had parked at The Sinks, and as I was walking back to the car I saw that the changing light was illuminating different parts of the mountain. Some of the trees were brightly lit, while others were left in shadow. Someone walked up to me and asked "what are you taking pictures of? Is there a bear?" He looked disappointed when I told him it was just the trees.



I got back in the car, but soon stopped at another pull-off for this view of the river:



And then the view at another pull-off:





I spent a lot of time at this next pull-off, both taking pictures and just sitting and watching the river as it rushed by.









By now it was almost sunset, and the light was starting to slowly fade out.



It was getting dark when I made one last stop along the river.





And one final bonus picture, if you weren't tired of looking at pictures of the Little River already. This was taken on a different day, after we had spent a few hours in the park. We were heading back to Gatlinburg but I had to pull over again, and ran out to get one more picture of river reflecting back some of that sweet golden evening light.