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Another Campsite View of the Creek Cherokee, North Carolina
After a day of stressors with the trailer brakes and another one doing a long drive, we took it easy yesterday. Not exactly a down-day but we didn't actually DO much sightseeing. We made it to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center (one of four in the park), talked to park rangers, picked up maps and brochures, and bought a couple of books. There are really just two things to do here, driving tours and hikes, and we are hoping to fill up our days with both to see as much of this park as we can.
And it is a big park. Great Smoky Mountain covers almost 600,000 acres and has 800 miles of hiking trails, third only to Yellowstone and Yosemite in the park system. It is the most visited park in the entire system, reflecting not just its eastern location (closer to population centers), but also the sheer beauty of the area. It is going to be a challenge to collect a decent thirty data-points so we can say we have seen this park. But we are going to have fun trying.
Great Smoky Mountain, like the Everglades, is a park to celebrate and
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Joan Drying Smooch after a Dip in the Water. Yes, that's a wine box on the table. protect bio-diversity. There are thousands of species of plants and animals here - some scientists say it could be as high as 150,000 - although they have documented only a small fraction, around 12,000. What makes it so diverse, is the range of habitats. The lowest elevation in the park is less than 900 feet, while the highest point (which we are planning on visiting) is about 6600 feet and is the third highest mountain peak in the Eastern US. (And we are being picky here since the highest point is only 40 or so feet higher)! That park mountain does happen to be the 'tallest' peak in the Eastern US, measured from bottom to top.
Add to the diversity of elevations an abundance of water. The park averages about 85 inches of precipitation per year and the peaks can receive even more. All that water has to go somewhere and, running over elevation changes results in an impressive number of waterfalls. (We are going to explore some of those today.). Finally, adding to the park's natural history, is that it was never scoured by glaciers. Glaciers came as far south as Ohio and northern Kentucky, but never down
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A tree just a hundred feet from our campground. Joan is there for perspective. this far. So the rather chilling effect glaciers have on life underneath them, was never experienced here. The bottom-line is that this place has a lot of reasons to be an unusually diverse bio-system.
Assuming the weather holds, we will be heading out later today to see what we can see. There is a 30% chance of thunderstorms for the next three days, increasing to near certainty on Sunday and Monday. So we may be rained out at times..
Besides reading up on the park and planning our driving and hiking, we also went in to Cherokee, the town just south of the park's entrance on this side. As the name suggests, this is part of the Cherokee reservation which nestles right next to the park. The Blue Ridge area is a key part of the Cherokee origin stories and they consider this land sacred. Cherokees and white settlers don't have a very proud history and at one point we literally forced them to leave these lands and move to Oklahoma (The Trail of Tears). Many moved back here after we finished raping their land - stripping it of natural resources like lumber and minerals. They now have a reservation and, of course, a casino.
But we did find a place where we could take a shower (there are no facilities in the park), and a Food Lion to buy some groceries. One thing we can't find, however, is beer! Anyway, we are a bit cleaner, rested up, and ready to go this morning. Off to find some waterfalls! (17.1.71)
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