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Tag: Smokies LIVE
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Trailside Talk: Summer Days
By Mike Hembree
The calendar will claim that summer starts June 20.
School children everywhere will claim that is wrong. And there is evidence—however anecdotal—to support their claim. Summer starts the day—no, the very hour—that the school session is over.
Summer comes early to the Smokies, too, and that might be
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Father–Daughter Duo Discovers New Aquatic Organism
By Frances Figart
A new aquatic organism has been discovered from a wetland near the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. It's a microscopic worm-like creature that feeds on algae and bacteria, and it appears to be pretty common across North America and much of the world, if one thinks to look for it.
This slide image of a hairybellied
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Trailside Talk: Counting on Le Conte
By Mike Hembree
If you have hiked to the top of Mount Le Conte, you have "peaked" Tom Layton’s interest.
A former journalist and master of the pun, Layton is the overseer, editor, and only employee of a website devoted to one of the Smokies’ legend-filled mountains and to the people who hike its trails repeatedly.
Layton, 66,
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Remarkable Women of the Smokies
By Sarah Shiver
Many inspiring and influential women have ties to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some lived and died in the Smokies before the park was established, while others advocated for the park’s creation or drew artistic inspiration from it. In honor of Women’s History Month, here is a look at three women of the smokies
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New Sepia Tones Series Adds Missing Liner Notes to Smokies Music History
The Great Smoky Mountains are positively full of music.
The songs begin with the music of the Cherokee—the Principal People who passed down their myths, songs, and dance long before the invention of a written Cherokee language. Later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the music came to include the songs of settlers, the enslaved peoples who
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Team BUSAR Assists GSMNP with Search and Rescue Operations
By Sarah Shiver
Photos courtesy of Team BUSAR
When exploring Great Smoky Mountains National Park, it is not uncommon for visitors to find themselves momentarily disoriented. Usually this confusion is resolved by quickly glancing at a map or asking a fellow hiker for directions. But for backcountry explorers who stray from the trail, face
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Trailside Talk: Greenbrier
By Mike Hembree
It’s easy to miss the entrance to one of Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s most noteworthy sections. Drive too fast on Highway 321 east of Gatlinburg and you’ll zoom past the small GSMNP sign by the Little Pigeon River bridge, and you’ll miss a grand experience.
You’ll miss Greenbrier.
In a
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New Book Teaches Youth About Need for Wildlife Crossings
By Frances Figart, Creative Services Director
When I started working at Great Smoky Mountains Association in 2017, I figured I would write a book at some point in my tenure. But I never dreamed I would become the author of a children’s book.
The impetus for it goes back to my own childhood, which was idyllic. I grew up in Eastern
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Wildflowers 101: Spring Beauty
Story and image by Tom Harrington
Over the years it has been most fulfilling, delightful, and exciting to start locating wildflowers in the Great Smoky Mountains during mid to late February into March. There is something about spotting the bloom of a wildflower in late winter and early spring that sparks a ray of hope in one’s
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Mountain Time: The Jewel of the Smokies
Story and images by Arthur “Butch” McDade
Mount Le Conte may not be the highest peak in the Smokies, but its impressive hulk looms over the Tennessee side of the national park. Here’s what writers Ken Wise and Ron Petersen say in A Natural History of Mount Le Conte: “Mount Le Conte is the crown jewel of the Great Smoky
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