Blog 15 -- snow in the Smokey's

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Well, we're back. Thank goodness the weather is so perfect here at home. Going from snow to hot, humid weather within a day would have been a shock, even more than coming off a great trip.
Here are some photos of the Smokey Mountains just this past Saturday and Sunday. We stayed at a campground in the Smokey's just outside of Bryson City, NC for three nights, leaving Sunday afternoon. On Saturday we headed up to Clingman's Dome and ran into snow on the way up. By the time we reached the top (minus the long uphill walk), we ran into almost blizzard conditions -- high winds, ice mixed with the heavy snow, several inches on the ground already. By the next morning Clingman's Dome had around a foot of snow and the road was closed. The rangers were beginning to worry about the parked cars that hadn't been moved since the previous day. You could tell by the snow on the cars. They were afraid that a few carefree and totally unprepared souls had decided to do a little hiking in the snow and weren't able to return to their cars.
On Sunday, as we were leaving, we dropped our camper at the Welcome Center and drove up to Lookout Point where there were about 4-5 inches of snow. For those of us raised up north, we know how beautiful a fresh snow can be. I hope these photos remind you.

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