Learned Something Amazing Today

Always a Smokey Haze

Today, our sights were set on driving a small portion of the Blueridge National
Parkway - destination Great Smokey Mountain National Park and Pigeon Forge,Tenn.
(home of Dollywood!)
The drive was spectacular of course - we had no idea that the mountains were so
tall and rugged in this part of the world. The forest is so thick with hardwood trees
that one would have a hard time walking through it at all. (There are evergreen trees
on the ridge lines.) I had a guy from the South tell me that he loved the West but what he didn't like is that our mountains don't have any trees. To these folks forests mean disiduous. Hmmm
Since we first drove in the Blueridge Mountian Range we have wondered why the

Smokey Mountains are called the Smokey Mountains. Sure, we noticed that the air always seemed smokey - but we assumed that was poor air quality, fog, mist or wood smoke. Today we learned that the constant smokey haze is from the hardwood forests as they breathe and exhale. It has a blue cast and of course makes for the most spectacular sunsets.
We had two hikes today both short and very steep. The three pictues on the right
are the hike to the Devil's Courthouse - a massive black outcropping with a cavern.
The Cherokee Indians lived in this area and they had many superstitions about it- mainly that the devil
 held court in the cavern. Those superstitions were carried on by the pioneers
who settled here and became the "mountain folk".

Devil's Courthouse behind Mimi

Well, ta ta for now - hope you enjoyed your environmental lesson for the day!