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Fog lingers among the forested hills of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which spans the southern Appalachians along the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. Water and hydrocarbons exuded by trees produce the filmy “smoke” that gives the mountains their name.
Established: Size: , acres Annual Visitors: By the time Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited park in the United States, was established it was almost too late to save it. It was ; about 80 percent of the forest in the park had been decimated by logging.
Much of the land belonged to 1, small property owners. It took the governments of Tennessee and North Carolina, donations from wealthy conservationists, the U. Park Service, and a whole lot of work to buy out the loggers and landowners, and to restore the Great Smoky Mountains to their glory. As the mountains regrew their native tree species and over native shrub species , the haze that gives the Smokies their name filled the mountain valleys in the early morning.
More than 1, species of flowering plants, types of birds, and around 50 kinds of fish live there. Great Smoky Mountain National Park has five visitor centers, ideal starting points for your journey. Here are our favorite points of departure for exploring the park.
Hiking Mount LeConte could be the bucket-list item for the Smokies. LeConte Lodge sits close to the summit of Mount LeConte, at 6, feet the third highest peak in the park. There is no driving to the summit; hiking in is the only way to get there. Built on the site of a tent camp erected in around to house visiting dignitaries, LeConte Lodge hosts day trippers as well as overnight guests.
Spectacular sunrises and uninterrupted nature at LeConte Lodge welcome hikers to the only National Park Service lodging in the park.
Wears Valley , just outside the Tennessee side of the park, has pastoral views and its own lesser known park entrance. The other Tennessee park gates, especially the one in Gatlinburg, get congested at peak times of year.
But the Wears Valley entrance just south of Townsend is where many locals enter the park. Synchronous fireflies light up late spring with their annual stupendous display of nature. At least 19 species of fireflies live in Great Smoky Mountains and the males and females of one species synchronize their bioluminescent flashing.
But plan ahead: A free lottery determines who gets to ride the shuttle into the park on certain dates to view the night lights. This national park contains more than cemeteries from tiny plots with just a few headstones to hundreds. Not all of the burial places in the park are marked, but keep an eye out for periwinkle. According to local author Gail Palmer , European settlers planted periwinkle on graves to keep away evil spirits.
North Carolina : Located just outside Cherokee, the Oconaluftee Visitor Center is the starting point for most visitors entering the park from North Carolina. In addition to a sizable bookstore and information desk, the center offers exhibits on Smoky Mountains history, in particular the Cherokee Indians and the early European settlers and their ancestors. Behind the visitor center, the Mountain Farm Museum gives insight into the lives of the people who once farmed the region, with hands-on exhibits and historic buildings brought from elsewhere in the park.
Beyond the mill, Highway starts its forest-flanked climb into the heart of the mountains. The former site of the Smokemont lumber village renders the first opportunity for camping, hiking, and horseback riding through outfits like Smokemont Riding Stables.
The road continues its ascent to Newfound Gap on the Tennessee-North Carolina border elevation 5, feet , where a viewpoint looks out over much of the Smokies. A stone monument marks the spot where FDR dedicated the park in A side road leads to Clingmans Dome, at 6, feet the highest point in the park, third highest peak in the eastern United States, and the highest place along the entire length of the Appalachian Trail. The North Carolina side features several off-the-beaten-track diversions where the quiet side of the Smokies is there for the taking.
Among the many 19th-century buildings that remain are two churches, the school, and several private homes. The lush valley also supports a herd of wild elk. Another journey into the past is the drive along Heintooga Ridge Road and the one-way continuation along gravel Balsam Mountain Road that leads into a remote section of the park that few people ever explore and is closed in winter.
The Roaring Fork portion is closed in winter. Little River Road runs east from Sugarlands to the Elkmont historic area and a large valley called Cades Cove that was another densely populated area prior to national park status. Motorists or bikers can pick up a self-guide tour book at the orientation shelter near the drive entrance and follow the mile loop road to historic structures like the grist mill, three old churches, and bygone homes like Tipton Place.
Cades Cove Trading Company rents bikes. Although most visitors treat Cades Cove as a dead end, intrepid drivers can follow two other routes out of the valley although both are closed in winter. Rich Mountain Road is a one-way, eight-mile route over oak-studded terrain to Townsend and eventually back around to Pigeon Forge. At feet, Fontana Dam is the tallest concrete dam east of the Rockies. The Tennessee Valley Authority maintains a visitor center beside the dam open May to October , while Fontana Marina offers kayak, paddle-board, and pontoon boat rentals, as well as guided hikes and boat tours.
Another quiet side of the park is the Greenbrier Cove, about a minute drive from Gatlinburg via Highway And the cove is the jumping-off point for several noteworthy hikes including the Brushy Mountain Trail 9.
The southern end is just 0. All rights reserved. A version of this article originally appeared in the National Geographic book Parks, Ideas. Created in partnership with local land management agencies, these expertly researched maps deliver unmatched detail and helpful information to guide experienced outdoor enthusiasts and casual visitors alike.
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What is the great smoky mountains national park known for. A Wondrous Diversity of Life
Great Smoky Mountain National Park is America’s most visited National Park. It’s no wonder why. As you watch the low-hanging fog rise among the ridge lines. The Smokies are known for their incredible biodiversity; it’s said that moving from the lowest to highest elevations within the park is the. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park (U.S. National Park Service).Great Smoky Mountains National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountainspart of the Blue Ridge Mountainswhich are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The border between the two states runs northeast to southwest through the center of the park. The Appalachian Trail passes through the center of the park on its route from Georgia to Smlky. With The park encompassesacres The park is internationally recognized for its mountains, waterfalls, biodiversity, and forests.
Roosevelt in The Great Smoky Mountains was the first national park having land and other costs paid in part with federal funds; previous parks were funded wholly with state money or private funds. Major attractions include Dollywoodthe second-most visited tourist attraction in Tbe, Ober Gatlinburgand Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies.
For thousands of years, this region was occupied by successive cultures of indigenous peoples. The historic Cherokee had their homeland here, and occupied numerous towns in the river valleys on both sides of the Appalachian Mountains. Their first encounters with Europeans were as traders, mostly coming from the colonial Carolinas and Virginia. European Americans did not begin to settle here until the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Most of the Cherokee were also removed. For a period some, led by such warriors as Tsalievaded removal by staying in ia area now part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
A band on the Oconaluftee River acquired land and also remained. Their descendants make up most of the federally recognized Eastern Band of Cherokee Indiansbased in Cherokee, North Carolinaand their Qualla Boundary reserve to the south of what is the great smoky mountains national park known for park.
Other settlers soon followed and began clearing land and farming. InJohn Oliver and his family were the mountins white settlers to move into Cades Cove.
As the community began to grow, the Cades Cove Baptist Church was established in As white settlers arrived, entrepreneurs developed logging as a major industry in the mountains. Townsend [13] in the lateth century to haul timber out of the remote regions of the area.
Colonel Townsend had purchased 86, acres mokntains land on the Little River. The construction of the Little River Railroad set an example for larger companies like the Ritter Lumber CompanyMontvale Timber Company, and Norwood Lumber to also purchase acres of land for logging.
By logging was at its peak and by about two-thirds of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park area had been logged or burned by fires from logging operations. Because cut-and-run-style clearcutting was destroying the natural beauty of the area, by the 20th century visitors and locals banded together to raise money for preservation of the land. The U. National Park Service wanted a park in the eastern United States, but did not have much money to establish one. David Chapmanмой best brunch restaurants asheville nc сообщение Knoxville, Tennessee business leader, was appointed in to head a commission to establish a national перейти here.
Congress authorized the park inbut there was no nucleus of federally owned land around which to develop it. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Slowly, mountain homesteaders, miners, and loggers were evicted from the land.
Farms and mountanis operations were abolished to establish the protected areas of the park. Travel writer Horace Kephartwhat is the great smoky mountains national park known for whom Mount Kephart was named, and photographers Jim Thompson and George Masa were instrumental in fostering the development of the park.
Hooper of Tennessee was the principal land purchasing agent for the park, [15] which was officially established on June 15, During ntional Great Depressionthe Civilian Conservation Corpsthe Works Progress Administrationand other federal organizations hired workers to build greta, fire watchtowers, and other infrastructure improvements to the park and Smoky Mountains.
A 75th anniversary re-dedication ceremony was held on 2 September Among those in attendance were the four U. Dolly PartonTennessee nationla, singer, and actress also attended and performed. In late November and early Decembera series of wildfires engulfed a total of 17, acres 72 km 2 in the park and surrounding areas.
The wildfires killed at least 14, injuredand forced the evacuation of more than 14, people. The fires, which were initially suspected to have cities cities: tennessee – tennessee caused by arsonoccurred during a period of unusual droughtwhich accelerated the fires. The wildfires were the deadliest in the Eastern United States since the Great Fires ofand comprised one of the worst natural disasters in the history of Tennessee.
He is the 16th superintendent of the park. This group consists of metamorphosed sandstonesphyllitesschistsand slate. Early Precambrian rocks are not only the oldest rocks in the park but also the dominant rock type in sites such as the Raven Fork Valley and upper Tuckasegee River between Cherokee and Bryson City. They primarily consist of metamorphic gneissgraniteand schist.
Cambrian sedimentary rocks can be found among the bottom of the Foothills to the northwest, and in limestone coves such as Cades Cove. What is the great smoky mountains national park known for oldest rocks in the Smokies are the Precambrian gneiss and schists which were formed over a billion years ago from the accumulation of marine what is the great smoky mountains national park known for and igneous rock.
In the Late Precambrian, the primordial ocean expanded and the more recent Ocoee Supergroup rocks formed from the accumulation of eroding land mass onto the continental shelf.
In the Paleozoic Era, the ocean deposited a thick layer of marine sediments which left behind sedimentary rock. During the Ordovician Period, the collision of the North American and African tor plates initiated the Alleghenian orogeny that created the Appalachian range. During the Mesozoic Era rapid erosion of softer sedimentary rocks re-exposed the older Ocoee Supergroup formations.
Elevations in the park range from about feet m to 6, feet 2, m at the summit of Clingmans Dome. Within the park a total of sixteen mountains reach higher than 5, feet 1, m. The wide range of elevations mimics the natjonal changes found throughout the entire eastern United States. Ascending the mountains is comparable to a trip from Tennessee to Canada.
Plants and animals common in the country’s Northeast have found suitable ecological niches in the park’s higher elevations, while southern species find homes in the balmier lower reaches. The humid, subtropical air mass typically in place over the Smoky Mountains produces large amounts of precipitation. Annual precipitation amounts range from 50—80 in 1,—2, mm[29] with heavy winter snowfall in the higher elevations.
The difference between high temperatures is similar to the moist adiabatic lapse rate of 3. The park is affected by air pollution because of increased development. From tothe park recorded approximately unhealthy air days, the equivalent of about one month of unhealthy air what is the great smoky mountains national park known for per year.
The park is almost what is the great smoky mountains national park known for percent forestedand almost 36 percent of it,acres 76, hais estimated by knosn Park Service to be old growth forest with many trees that predate European settlement of the area. The variety of elevations, the abundant rainfall, and ссылка на страницу presence of old growth forests give думаю, texas rank in public education поворотах! park an unusual richness of biota.
About 19, species of organisms are known to live in the park, and estimates as high as an additionalundocumented species may also be present. Park officials count more than species of birds, 50 species of fish, 39 species of reptiles, and 43 species of amphibians, including many lungless salamanders.
The park is an important site for salamanders. Fish and Wildlife Services smooy remove the wolves from the area in Elk wapiti were reintroduced to the park inthree years after the FWS removed the red wolves from the area. Elk are most abundant in the Cataloochee area in the southeastern section of the park.
It is also home to species of mammals such as the raccoonbobcattwo species of foxriver otterwoodchuckbeavertwo species of squirrelopossumcoyotewhite-tailed deerchipmunktwo species of skunk grreat, and various species of bats. Over species of trees grow in the park. The lower region forests are dominated by deciduous leafy trees. At higher altitudes, deciduous forests give way to coniferous trees like Fraser fir.
In addition, the park has over 1, flowering plant species and over 4, species of non-flowering plants. It has been the most visited national park for many years, with over Surrounding towns, notably GatlinburgPigeon ForgeSeviervilleand TownsendTennesseeand CherokeeSylvaMaggie Valleyand Bryson CityNorth Carolinareceive a significant portion of their income from tourism associated узнать больше здесь the park.
The two main visitor centers inside the park are Sugarlands Visitors’ Center near the Gatlinburg детальнее на этой странице to the park and Oconaluftee Visitor Center near Cherokee, What is the great smoky mountains national park known for Carolinaat the eastern entrance to the park.
These ranger stations provide exhibits on wildlifegeologyand the history of the park. They also sell books, maps, and souvenirs. Entrance into the park is free. Highway known in the park as Newfound Gap Road bisects the park, providing automobile access to many trailheads and overlooks, most greqt that of Newfound Gap.
It was here that infrom the Rockefeller Memorial, Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the national park. On clear days Newfound Gap offers arguably the most spectacular scenes accessible via highway in the park. The park has a number of historical attractions. The most well-preserved of these and most popular is Cades Жмите сюдаa valley with a number of preserved historic buildings including log cabinsbarnsand churches.
Cades Cove is what is the great smoky mountains national park known for single most frequented destination in the national park. Self-guided automobile and bicycle tours offer the many sightseers a glimpse into the way of life of old-time southern Appalachia. There are miles 1, km of trails and unpaved roads in the park for hiking, including 70 miles km of the Appalachian Trail. Its elevation is 6, feet 2, mthe third highest summit in the park and, ie from its base to its highest peak, the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi River.
Alum Cave Trail is the what is the great smoky mountains national park known for heavily used of the five paths en route to the summit. It provides many scenic overlooks and unique natural attractions such as Alum Cave Bluffs and Arch Rock. Hikers may spend a night at the LeConte Lodge, located near the summit, which provides cabins and rooms for rent except during iz winter season.
Accessible solely by trail, it is the only private lodging available inside the park. Another popular hiking /12412.txt led to the pinnacle of the Chimney Topspzrk named because of its unique dual-humped peaktops.
This short but strenuous trek rewarded nature enthusiasts with a spectacular panorama of the surrounding mountain peaks. It was the flashpoint for the Great Smoky Mountains wildfiresand therefore sustained extensive damage, evident still today in clearly visible burn scars.
– What is the great smoky mountains national park known for
Synchronous Fireflies. For thousands of years, this region was occupied by successive cultures of indigenous peoples. Most of the Cherokee were also removed. Retrieved 3 May
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