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.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Little River

The Little River begins on the north slopes of Kuwohi, the tallest mountain in Tennessee. From there it meanders through Great Smoky National Park for 18 miles before it exits the park and then flows towards Knoxville. Inside the park, someone kindly built a road that runs along a good portion of the river. And they were also nice enough to put in lots of convenient pull-offs for people to stop at and take pictures.



This overlook also had a bonus attraction with this great view of Meigs Falls.



I headed down the road but didn't make it too far before stopping at another pull-off. The river has crystal clear water, which flows over and around large rocks and boulders.









And headed back on the road, the amount of traffic steadily increased as it got later in the morning.



I stopped at another pull-off along a slower stretch of the river. Here the shore was flat, a nice place that we would return again with the kids.







And at another pull-off was this nice little waterfall, so I dutifully stopped to get a few more pictures.







And the view looking upriver.



I needed to get back to our place in Gatlinburg. I had promised the family that I would return at a certain time, which was quickly approaching. There isn't cell phone service in the park, so there's not a way to call and say you're going to be late. So I reluctantly turned around, but luckily I would be able to have more time later on our trip to see more of the Little River.

I did make one last stop, getting a few shots from this really scenic spot: 

Great Smoky Mountains National Park - The Sinks

Last week was the kid's Spring Break, and we decided to take them over to Tennessee for a visit to the Smoky Mountains. So we headed east through Memphis (unfortunately no time to stop for ribs), and then through Nashville and then eventually Gatlinburg.

We last visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park ten years ago, and I was excited to get back. The park is beautiful, with scenic overlooks and waterfalls and mountain streams. I was quite eager to get out and into the park, so I woke up before sunrise the next day (unsurprisingly, no one else wanted to wake up early and get back in the car for more driving). It was raining and foggy when I drove into the park.

They say it's always darkest before the dawn, which of course means there's no light for taking pictures. I followed the Little River Gorge Road, and stopped at one of the first pulloffs to wait for the sunrise. Finally there was just light enough to get a few pictures, so I set up the camera under an umbrella and tried to get a few pictures. I got this shot, which was taken with a 30 second exposure.



Then I headed further down the road to a spot called The Sinks - a 15 foot-tall waterfall along the Little River.



The Sinks isn't actually a natural waterfall. It was man-made, back before this was a National Park. Back in the 1800s there was a large logging industry here, and one of the ways that fallen trees were sent to the sawmill was to float them down the Little River. But one year a massive logjam occurred at a horseshoe bend in the river. Hundreds of logs piled up, and the loggers came up with a solution - dynamite. The resulting blast left a deep chasm, which removed the logs but also rerouted the river.



It was pouring rain when I was there, and I had the place to myself. The parking lot was empty and only a few cars passed over the bridge. We stopped here a few other times on our trip, and each time it would be nearly packed with people. There were even people swimming here, despite the numerous signs saying that swimming was prohibited (and also despite the water probably being really really cold). But this morning I headed back to the car, dried off the camera, and drove off to a few more scenic spots on the Little River. More photos from here on the next post...