June 23-29, 2019

Pigeon Forge, TN

(Great Smoky Mountain National Park)

We don’t usually make reservations but when we want to go places that have high volume tourism I have found I am less stressed if I know I have a spot waiting for us. 

I was able to secure a spot at Walden Creek RV Park for a week with a Passport America discount.  The park has a very narrow entrance with tight turns. 

I had planned a jam-packed itinerary for the week beginning with a day in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

We began our visit to the park at the Sugarlands Visitor Center where I stamped my National Parks Passport and we watched a 20-minute film.

According to the National Park brochure, “No place this size in a temperate climate can match Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s variety of plant and animal species.  Here there are more tree species than in northern Europe, 1,500 flowering plants, dozens of native fish, and over 200 species of birds and 60 of mammals. …

The Cherokee described these mountains as shaconage, meaning “blue, like smoke”.  They farmed the land and built log homes.  The Cherokee tried to adapt to Europeans, but the newcomers took their land.   During the 1790s white settlement began in the lowlands and climbed the hill as eastern farmland became scarce and commercial agriculture migrated to the Midwest.  The Eastern Band of Cherokee now lives on its reservation next to the national park.  Most tribe members are descendants of those not forcible removed in the 1830s.”

Congress authorized the park in 1926.  Established in 1934, this was among the first national parks assembled from private lands.  North Carolina, Tennessee, private citizens and groups contributed money to purchase the land for donation to the federal government.

We drove to one of the most popular sites in the park, Clingmans Dome. 

At an elevation of 6,643 feet, it is the highest mountain in the Smokies and the highest point along the 2,174-mile Appalachian Trail.

Although the trail leading up to the observation tower is only ½ mile, it is quite strenuous. 

The 45-foot concrete observation tower, built in 1959, features a circular observation platform accessed by a spiral ramp. 

 The ramp is 375 feet and rises at a 12 percent grade. 

On a clear day there is a 360-degree panorama of the surrounding terrain. 

 Depending on the haze, visibility ranges from 20 miles to 100 miles on very clear days. 

Unfortunately the day we visited there was almost zero visibility.

 

Along the way to our next destination, the Oconalutee Visitor Center, we stopped at a few different scenic overviews.

  

The Oconalutee Visitor Center is the main entrance to North Carolina side of the park. 

 

 It is the Park’s first new service facility to be constructed since the early 1960s. 

Adjacent to the visitor center is the Mountain Farm Museum, a collection of several log buildings from various places around the park.

  It demonstrates a typical mountain farm in pioneer Appalachia. 

Our final stop before departing the park was to the Mingus Mill. 

 

 Built in 1886 at a cost of $600, the mill operated at wholesale and retail levels until the National Park Service purchased the property in 1934.

A small dam channels water into the millrace or sluice.  The millrace channels water into an elevated flume.  The water flows through a “Chuck rake” that filters off any leaves, sticks or large debris.  A small box also catches any sand in the water to keep it from reaching the turbine. 

The flume pours water into the “penstock”, which is built right next to the mill.  This water pressure is run into a metal pipe attached to the turbine housing. 

The turbine has angled blades, causing the water to turn the turbine, which turns an attached metal rod that goes into the mill.  The metal rod is used to turn the grinding stones.

 

 

 

 

Saturdays were traditionally mill days with people bringing their wheat and corn to be ground.  Customers were required to pay a mill toll.  They deposited their grain into the toll box that could then be sold to other customers.