When I reached Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I thought ‘Whew! I’m finally back in my photographic element’. Or maybe not. GSMNP is a wonderful place, as you can see from the pictures below. It’s very different from other National Parks I have visited, though.

I took a great many pictures at GSMNP that look similar to these. Why would I do such a thing? Because THIS is what passes for a vista at GSMNP. I hiked up into the mountains (ok, not all that far since I can’t hike well anymore) hoping to break out into a clearing where I could actually SEE the Great Smoky Mountains, and all I saw was this: hilly shapes vaguely visible through heavy trees.

Another different thing about GSMNP was the Artifacts of Civilization that loomed over the park like the shadow of the Grim Reaper. These are ruins of hunting lodges (and actual hunting lodges are there as well, in fact, a whole village of them).

In many places it wasn’t all that easy to shoot around the Looming Hand. I had to go to some trouble to exclude the ruins looming over this very stream, and it only works if you overlook the old spring house sitting smack dab in the middle of the photo. Everywhere I went there was an old logging railroad grade or an old house or homesite or something. A lot of the western parks seem to have been formed to preserve natural features, while GSMNP came later, after logging and hunting and summer houses and what-have-you had already been built.

These are ruins too, although you cannot see them because they are so ruined they don’t exist anymore. This is an old homesite.

More ruins. The bridge is still here but the house is a broken foundation (which I ignored and did not photograph because it wasn’t attractive). Because of the heavy tree cover and frequently overcast weather, the light at GSNMP was what you might c… — More ruins. The bridge is still here but the house is a broken foundation (which I ignored and did not photograph because it wasn’t attractive). Because of the heavy tree cover and frequently overcast weather, the light at GSNMP was what you might call ‘subdued’. Or gloomy.

It was not until I left the park that I actually SAW the Great Smoky Mountains. There is a scenic roadway that is a separate parklet from which you get (finally) the vistas I was craving. Here are some views from the scenic drive. I thought I took these on Thanksgiving day, but I later discovered that I didn't know when Thanksgiving was and I was off by a week. Strangely, given the fact that traffic in the town near the park entrance was so horrible I practically had an anxiety attack trying to jockey my ginormous RV through it, the parkway was utterly deserted.