63rd Annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage kicks off in Gatlinburg

GATLINBURG, TN — As winter fades and a colors of open start to flicker via a Smokies, Gatlinburg blossoms into a core of all things botanical during Great Smoky Mountain Association’s 63rd Annual Wildflower Pilgrimage. The eventuality kicked off yesterday in Gatlinburg.

From now to Apr 27, everybody from a critical botanist to a weekend gardener can believe singular entrance to some of a nation’s heading botanical experts as good as Appalachian wildlife authorities.

“It is a singular eventuality for those with a personal adore of flowers to have a same entrance to leaders in a margin as researchers,” pronounced Ken McFarland, a botanist and highbrow during a University of Tennessee. “Through seminars and insinuate guided tours, any member will enhance his or her skills and believe of a unmatched flora and fauna of a Smokies.”

The Wildflower Pilgrimage, that dates to 1951, offers over 150 programs including an array of enlightening walks and guided hiking tours tailored to accommodate particular walking ability and ability, along with demonstrations and guest lecturers. These tours showcase a abounding varieties of wildflowers, plants, ferns, mosses, trees and shrubs, as good as birds, reptiles and amphibians, all local to a Great Smoky Mountains. A photography competition is open to a open featuring Flora, Fauna and Landscape categories.

While many classes take place in a Great Outdoors, a series of educational classroom sessions and dusk party holding place in W.L. Mills Conference Center in downtown will turn out a week in Gatlinburg and a Smokies. Participating sponsors are Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Great Smoky Mountains Association, City of Gatlinburg, University of Tennessee Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Friends of a Smokies, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, TVA, Southern Appalachian Botanical Society and Gatlinburg Garden Club.

Download a 2013 activity brochure, learn some-more about a event, get information about a photography competition and register online during www.springwildflowerpilgrimage.org.

Renovated Sugarlands Visitor Center rededicated

GATLINBURG, Tenn. — The newly renovated Sugarlands Visitor Center has been rededicated in a Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Park Superintendent Dale Ditmanson told The Mountain Press ( http://bit.ly/YJJgOV) there’s an updated clarity of attainment now when visitors travel in.

Among a changes were relocating a information table to a behind wall to make it a concentration of attention, updating a exhibits, installing LED lights to preserve energy, putting in new flooring and portrayal a interior a appreciative shade of green.

The badge was cut Saturday by park officials and park boosters, a Great Smoky Mountains Association and a Friends of a Smokies.

Park crews worked during dusk hours during a winter, so a core remained open for visitors.

About 850,000 visitors come by a core annually.

63rd Annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage In Gatlinburg Is Apr 23-27

As winter fades and a colors of open start to flicker via a Smokies, Gatlinburg blossoms into a core of all things botanical during Great Smoky Mountain Association’s 63^rd annual Wildflower Pilgrimage.

From Apr 23-27, everybody from a critical botanist to a weekend gardener can believe singular entrance to some of a nation’s heading botanical experts as good as Appalachian wildlife authorities.

“It is a singular eventuality for those with a personal adore of flowers to have a same entrance to leaders in a margin as researchers,” pronounced Ken McFarland, a botanist and highbrow during a University of Tennessee.  “Through seminars and insinuate guided tours, any member will enhance his or her skills and believe of a unmatched flora and fauna of a Smokies.”

The Wildflower Pilgrimage, that dates to 1951, offers over 150 programs including an array of enlightening walks and guided hiking tours tailored to accommodate particular walking ability and ability, along with demonstrations and guest lecturers.  These tours showcase a abounding varieties of wildflowers, plants, ferns, mosses, trees and shrubs, as good as birds, reptiles and amphibians, all local to a Great Smoky Mountains.  A photography competition is open to a open featuring Flora, Fauna and Landscape categories.

While many classes take place in a Great Outdoors, a series of educational classroomsessions and dusk party holding place in W.L. Mills Conference Center in downtown will turn out a week in Gatlinburg and a Smokies.  Participating sponsors are Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Great Smoky Mountains Association, City of Gatlinburg, University of Tennessee Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Friends of a Smokies, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, TVA, Southern Appalachian Botanical Society and Gatlinburg Garden Club.

Download a 2013 activity brochure, learn some-more about a event, get information about a photography competition and register online during www.springwildflowerpilgrimage.org.

Trails We Can Still Hike: Great Smoky Mountains National Park

An historic wheel is found on the Boogerman Trail in Cataloochee. The firetower on Mt. Cammerer with Friends of the Smokies group. Photos by Danny Bernstein.

When a landslide took out a significant chunk of the Newfound Gap Road through Great Smoky Mountains National Park earlier this month, it seemed as if the park was cut off from humanity. Between seasonal closings, temporary closures because of snow and ice, and the slide on U.S. 441 (Newfound Gap Road), where could hikers go?

As of today, the Newfound Gap Road has been reopened on the Tennessee side from Gatlinburg to Newfound Gap on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. You can go to Cades Cove, Greenbrier and up Chimney Tops Trail. On the North Carolina side of the park where the landslide occurred near milepost 22, we need to take the opportunity to discover new places to hike. This is the time to make lemonade out of lemons. Here are some suggestions for the winter.

Cataloochee

The Cataloochee area is open and full of hiking possibilities. Most are low-altitude hikes, which would be suitable even without the road closure. In addition, on cold, cloudy days, you may just see some of the elk that live in this part of the park.

The classic Boogerman Trail (7.5 miles, 1,150 feet ascent) offers stone walls and other historical artifacts. The trailhead is in the Cataloochee Valley, just past the campground on the right. You start the hike on Caldwell Fork Trail and take the Boogerman Trail in 0.8 mile. Caldwell Fork Trail crisscrosses the fork ten times on various bridges.

Little Cataloochee Trail is an out and back hike that shows off historic cabins and the Little Cataloochee Baptist Church. As described in the linked article, it’s a 6.1-mile hike that entails 1,100 feet of ascent, but you can go as far as you want and return.

Smokemont Area

The Smokemont Loop starts at the far end of Smokemont Campground. Along this 6.2-mile hike, with 1,400 feet of rise, you’ll cross Bradley Creek, climb Richland Mountain, and find the Bradley Cemetery.

Starting from the same trailhead, you can walk 1.2 miles and turn right on Chasteen Creek Trail. After 0.7 mile, take a muddy trail, which leads to a hitching post. Go another couple of hundred feet and you’ll enjoy a great view of the creek with its cascade.

Deep Creek area

From Bryson City North Carolina, hikers can explore two areas.

The Lake Shore Loop starts at the famous (or infamous) tunnel from the Road to Nowhere (Lakeview Drive). The complete hike (10 miles, 1,400 feet of ascent) takes in White Oak Branch and Forney Creek. Because you’ll stay low in altitude, it makes a perfect winter hike.

The Deep Creek Loop follows Deep Creek to Horace Kephart millstone and climbs up Martins Gap, the only steady climb for the day. You’ll come back down on Indian Creek Trail to close the circle. The hike (13.4 miles and 1,900 feet ascent) includes two waterfalls, several campsites, and the millstone. Even a short walk along Deep Creek to Tom Branch Falls and back (0.6 mile round-trip) will give you a chance to enjoy winter in the Smokies.

Big Creek

Big Creek Campground is closed for the winter, but this shouldn’t stop you from walking Big Creek Trail as far, or as little, as you want before returning to your rig. Big Creek Trail follows an old railroad grade for more than five miles to Walnut Bottom Campsite #37.

Not quite 1.5 miles from the trailhead, you’ll reach Midnight Hole where the water flows between two huge boulders and into a large pool. It’s too cold to swim now, but the scenery is beautiful. Another 0.6 mile brings you to Mouse Creek Falls, a 25-foot cascade located on the left as you go up.

What About A Winter Backpack?

Itching for a Smokies winter backpack with ice and snow? Try camping at the top of Mount Sterling at campsite #38. The backpack trek as described spans six days. You can shorten it to an overnight trip by going up Baxter Creek Trail and coming down Big Creek Trail with a couple of intermediate trails before reaching Big Creek Trail. Please study a paper map for the complete route. You really need to be prepared, especially in the winter. Maybe you can get this backpack in before the backcountry fees are implemented on Feb. 13.

The Appalachian Trail

You can reach the A.T. in two places on the North Carolina side of the park.

Going trail north, the A.T. enters the Smokies at Fontana Dam. After 3.4 miles of steep climbing, you’ll reach a short side trail to Shuckstack Tower. For an easier alternative, you can take a boat from the Fontana Marina to Hazel Creek and explore the remains of the town of Proctor.

The A.T. leaves the Smokies at Davenport Gap. You can climb up to Mt. Cammerer going trail south (11.4 miles, 3,000 feet ascent). The lookout tower is at 5,000 feet, so you’ll experience ice and snow, no matter how balmy it feels at the trailhead.

All these hiking suggestions on the North Carolina side of the Smokies are available right now. The first set of road openings occurs on March 8, bringing more opportunities. Even if Newfound Gap Road stays closed through the spring, there will be plenty of places to hike and enjoy flowers.

Resources

For road conditions, go to http://twitter.com/smokiesroadsnps. This Twitter site is updated much more frequently than the website.

For all trail and road closures, use http://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/temproadclose.htm

Hiking Trails of the Smokies (5th edition), published by the Great Smoky Mountains Association, 2012.

National Geographic Trails Illustrated map 229, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Gimme shelter: Knoxville-based hiking club recognized for trail shelter work …

A Knoxville-based hiking club has earned national recognition for making big improvements to the backcountry trail shelters in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Smoky Mountains Hiking Club’s backcountry shelter crew recently received the 2012 Southeast Regional George B. Hartzog Jr. Award for outstanding volunteer service based on the club’s long-term effort to rehabilitate all 15 trail shelters in the Smokies, all but three of which are located along the Appalachian Trail between Fontana Dam and Davenport Gap.

The club began rehabilitating the trail shelters in 1998. Fifteen years later, the project concluded with the renovation of the Laurel Gap shelter along the Balsam Mountain Trail at the east end of the Smokies. Over the course of the construction the club obtained more than $750,000 of donated construction materials, moved more than 120 tons of dirt and materials, and donated more than 20,000 hours of time, valued at nearly $500,000 to the park.

The Friends of the Smokies also provided $120,000 in funding through the Richard Haiman National Parks Foundation.

Founded in 1924, the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club predates the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park by a decade. For the past 16 years, club members have maintained all 72 miles of the Appalachian Trail through the Smokies in cooperation with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the National Park Service. In addition, the club maintains 30 miles of the AT in North Carolina’s Nantahala National Forest, just south of the park.

“The Smoky Mountains Hiking Club has been doing extraordinary things in the park for many years,” said Christine Hoyer, volunteer coordinator for the Smokies.

The club’s outstanding volunteer service award is named after George B. Hartzog Jr., who created the Volunteers-In-Parks program while serving as National Park Service director between 1964 and 1972.

The club currently is building low-maintenance, more-efficient outhouses — called moldering privies — at trail shelters along an adopted section of the AT. So far they’ve installed five of these improved privies — three in the Nantahala National Forest and two in the Smokies, at Tricorner Knob and the shelter on Mount LeConte.

This year the club plans to add moldering privies at the Icewater Springs and Pecks Corner shelters.

The Smoky Mountains Hiking Club is one of 31 clubs that help maintain the AT from Maine to Georgia. Completed in 1937, the trail today stretches 2,180 miles and offers hikers approximately 250 overnight shelters located about a day’s hike apart.

The park’s old trail shelters were crowded and dark. Most had chain-link bear barricades across the front, making them even more uninviting. Architects and engineers in the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club formulated new shelter designs, and the members’ strong camaraderie sustained them through 15 years of hard work that included helicopter operations and bad weather.

Today, the shelters have added floor space and improved natural lighting. Cable systems for suspending food have eliminated the need for the chain-link fences, and park officials report a significant decrease in resource damage due to backpackers avoiding the shelters.

“We had a dedicated core group that wanted to get this done, and by dang, we did it,” said Phyllis Henry, volunteer coordinator for the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club.

Vountourism Spotlight: Trail Rehab in The Great Smoky Mountains

Eco Travel, National Parks, South, Travel News, Voluntourism — <!–By PeterGreenberg.com–> on September 19, 2012 12:31 pm

Fall is one of the best times of year to check out our national parks, when the weather is still fine but the crowds have gone home.  Better yet, this is the time to help repair some of the summer wear and tear. This week’s Voluntourism Spotlight shows you how to volunteer for a day or even a week with Trails Forever, a partnership program between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Friends of the Smokies.  Check back every Wednesday for more voluntourism opportunities and tune into Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio this weekend for more information.

Head to the Smokies this fall and get your hands dirty working alongside professional trail workers to make lasting and important improvements to trails throughout the park. Projects are still underway until late fall 2012!

Trails Forever focuses on sustainable trail improvement maintenance and trail rehabilitation work. Volunteers help re-define sections of trail that have become unsafe or unwalkable, improve drainage structures, build staircases, work to prevent further erosion and naturalize  trails to prevent resource damage. The program focuses on high use and high priority trails in the Park.  The results of the “sweat equity” that volunteers provide are tangible and people can see the concrete difference they are making to preserve the trails for future generations.

Sounds great, but can I do this?

According to Christine Hoyer, Trails and Facilities Volunteer Coordinator, the people that volunteer for Trails Forever range from single individuals to friends who volunteer together, families, local park enthusiasts, vacationers from around the country, as well as groups from local schools, hiking clubs, special interest groups (local companies and organizations), to college students on alternative spring and fall break service trips.

Jobs assignments vary depending on your level of experience, all Trails Forever volunteers must be able to hike at least 4 miles and safely perform strenuous and often difficult manual labor.

The primary project for the 2012 Trails Forever Crew is the Chimney Tops Trail, one of the most popular trails in the park because of its length and the spectacular views from the top. The project will stabilize and improve the trail conditions to protect the resources and enhance the visitor’s experience.

You can find out more information about all the Great Smoky National Parks programs and apply to be a volunteer here.

Happy Trails!

By Kari Adwell for PeterGreenberg.com

Image Credit:Christine Hoyer

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Join Friends of the Smokies for a waterfall hike on Big Creek, Thursday, Sept. 20

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(Enjoy the clear cool waters at Midnight Hole while hiking with Friends of the Smokies along Big Creek in Great Smoky Mountains National Park — photo by Danny Bernstein)

Press release

from Friends of the Smokies
Discover beautiful waterfalls and a choice swimming hole while hiking with Friends of the Smokies in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. On Thursday, September 20, join the next “Classic Hike of the Smokies” for a waterfall-filled guided hike along Big Creek.

Hikers may wade or swim in Midnight Hole and admire Mouse Creek Falls, dubbed by waterfall aficionado and photographer Kevin Adams as one of his favorite in western North Carolina. Hiking enthusiast and author Danny Bernstein (“Hiking North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains”) will lead this 10-mile hike. The hike is easy to moderate in difficulty and has a total elevation gain of 1,100 ft.

Participants may gather for the all day excursion in Asheville at 8:30 a.m. or Waynesville at 9:00 a.m. A donation of $35 to go to the Friends’ Smokies Trails Forever program is requested, and includes a complimentary membership to Friends of the Smokies. Current Friends of the Smokies members hike for $10. Hikers who bring a friend hike for free.

“Classic Hikes of the Smokies” occur monthly on the third Thursday. Upcoming hikes in the 2012 series include Caldwell Fork in Cataloochee in October and Hyatt Ridge Discovery hike in November.

To register for any of the hikes, contact Friends of the Smokies at hollyd@friendsofthesmokies.org or 828-452-0720. For more information, including a complete list of the North Carolina Classic Hikes series, visit www.friendsofthesmokies.org. Information about helping with the improvements to trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park can be found at www.smokiestrailsforever.org.

Since 1993, the not-for-profit Friends of the Smokies organization has raised more than $37 million to help maintain Great Smoky Mountains National Park as a crown jewel of the national park system, including the establishment of the $4 million Trails Forever endowment to improve Smoky Mountain hiking trails in perpetuity.

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Help the Smokies tonight! – Asheville Citizen

The Friends of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park annual telethon is going on right now on WLOS TV in Asheville. The fundraiser is from 7-8 p.m.

Smokies

Friends of the Smokies will contribute more than $1 million this year to fund current park needs, including the ongoing battle to suppress the hemlock woolly adelgid across the Smokies, conservation of black bears in the backcountry, and management of the elk herd in Cataloochee.  Friends will provide more than $275,000 for curriculum enhancement for the Parks as Classrooms environmental education program that serves more than 12,000 students in schools bordering the park.

Telethon donations can be made online now at www.friendsofthesmokies.org.  During the broadcast, volunteers will take phone-in pledges at 877-687-MTNS (6867).

Since 1993, the not-for-profit Friends of the Smokies organization has raised more than $37 million to help maintain Great Smoky Mountains National Park as a crown jewel of the national park system, including the establishment of the $4 million Trails Forever endowment to improve Smoky Mountain hiking trails in perpetuity.

The federal budget alone is nowhere near enough to provide these programs. Help out the most visited national park in the country and an important patch of wilderness right in our backyard by supporting Friends of the Smokies. If you don’t get to call tonight, don’t worry, you can call and donate tomorrow, too.

For more information online visit, www.FriendsOfTheSmokies.org or www.SmokiesTrailsForever.org.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park pilots artist-in-residence program

The Smoky Mountains have inspired painters and poets long before the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established in the 20th century. This year the park builds on the land’s creative influence as it pilots a resident artist program to inspire artists and connect with the public.

Six artists will live and work in the park in separate stints through November in the park’s Artist-in-Residence (Air) program. Each selected artist spends about a month in the park.

Air is part of the National Park Service’s volunteer program. Artists aren’t paid; they live in park employee housing and get an art supply stipend. Friends of the Smokies pays housing and art stipend costs in the program that costs a total of $6,000, said Dana Soehn, the park’s volunteer coordinator.

Photo by Adam Brimer, copyright © 2012 // Buy this photo

Adams, an associate professor at East Carolina University, primarily works in charcoal and graphite.

Special to the News Sentinel
Cherokee, N.C. high school student Tagen Crowe painted this portrait. Crowe participated in a pilot artist program in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He is the grandson of John A. Crowe, former Chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Photo by Adam Brimer, copyright © 2012 // Buy this photo

photos by ADAM BRIMER/NEWS SENTINEL
Kelly Adams draws near Abrams Creek at the Cades Cove campground in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Adams is an artist-in-residence for the park for a 4-week period.

The program also collaborates with Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg. Resident artists may take Arrowmont classes at a discount. A committee of Arrowmont and park personnel selected the Air artists from 25 applications.

Selected artists’ disciplines range from painting to videography to paper relief images. As part of the residency each will conduct a public program during his or her residency. They also will contribute a piece of art inspired by their time in the mountains to the park. The artwork must be donated within a year of the artist’s residency.

The program is modeled on programs at other national parks and it expands the Smokies’ mission, said Soehn.

“One mission of the park is that this is a place for inspiration and the Smokies are a perfect backdrop for inspiration,” said Soehn. The program, she said, aims to inspire artists to create art that in turn inspires members of the public “including some people who may never see these mountains. That will extend that part of our mission.”

Resident artists include Kelly Adams from Greenville, N.C. An associate professor at East Carolina University’s School of Art Design, Adams paints and draws, primarily using charcoal and graphite. She’ll be in Cades Cove and other sections of the park until early August. She’s the second Air artist; Miami, Fla., high school teacher and woodcut artist Tom Virgin was at the park in June and July.

For Adams, the views of the Smokies offer different perspectives from those in the swamps of eastern North Carolina near where she lives. The mountains also have much different vistas than the two western United States parks — Colorado’s Mesa Verde and Arizona’s Petrified Forest — where she worked previously a resident artist.

Adams primarily creates large landscapes in her Greenville studio. In eastern North Carolina, her landscapes often narrate an artistic focus on water quality. Her work also focused on water when she worked in the western parks. Her art reflected water’s effect on Native Americans at Mesa Verde and how water helped form the Petrified Forest’s now arid landscape.

But in the lush green of the Smokies, Adams is looking “at a lot of trees and indigenous plant life. So I am looking at the ideas behind exotic invasive plants and how they are impacting the park and the native diversity.”

In the park she’s been working in Cades Cove but will visit Elkmont, Clingman’s Dome and the area around Cherokee, N.C. Michael Voors, an ECU art professor and Adams’ husband, accompanied her to the mountains. “When it comes to studio work we work separately but it’s nice to have a partner to wander around with,” she said.

In the park Adams is doing a lot of sketching and photographing. Her sketches and photos will serve as reference information back in her North Carolina studio. She also uses her time to become familiar with the Smokies. “That is what the residency is great for, that kind of research time. I can look at a lot of things, do a lot of photographs. Most of the work is done back in the studio,” she said.

Other Air resident artists are South Bend, Ind., filmmaker Michael Burke and photographer/writer Rob Wilson of Orlando, Fla. Scientific illustrator Leigh Ann Carter from Monterey Bay, Calif.; and Lowell, Mass., resident Michal Truelsen, who creates paper relief images, are the other resident artists.

In addition to the resident artists, Cherokee, N.C., High School student Tagan Crowe participated in Air. Crowe paints primarily in oils on large canvasses. He painted at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center on the park’s North Carolina side through July 28. Crowe is a grandson of John A. Crowe, former chief of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee.

Smoky Mountains National Park may have sister arrangement

KODAK, Tenn. — The group Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park says the park is considering a sister park arrangement with a similar area in Iceland.

The announcement came as the Alcoa Foundation is providing funds to the group and The American-Scandinavian Foundation to begin a two-year Icelandic National Parks training program. The Smoky Mountains organization will get $40,000 and the ASF will get $112,000.

Friends of the Smokies has previously consulted on the creation of the Friends of Vatnajokull group. Vatnajokull is a national park in Iceland and site of the Dettifoss waterfall, seen in the movie “Prometheus.”

Friends of the Smokies raises funds and provides volunteer support to help preserve the national park.