Blue Ridge Parkway & Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Day 63
My night in Blacksburg was a great time. What I didn't mention before was the friend I was visiting was one of my companions from Leg 1 of this trip. It was great to see him again, to catch up and to tell him how obviously better Leg 1 was because he was a part of it.

That night he had some friends over, and we drank beer and watched a football game. I'd forgot what football was. I still like it.

Blue Ridge Parkway
After leaving Blacksburg, I drove towards Blue Ridge Parkway to finish the second, southern half of the parkway. The parkway is set up similar to the Nacthez Trace Parkway, if you recall that post. The difference was the scenery. What a cool road this is!

Unfortunately for you, I did not take very many photos. Also, it was cloudy, so the photos I did take did not turn out all that well. And believe me, to properly photograph this 467-mile road could take a month or more. Here is the only photo of the parkway I have posted. This road may very well make the list.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park
While a beautiful drive, it was also a very long drive (467 miles at 45 mph), and it was good to make it to camp at GSMNP. It was also very cold! When I arrived at camp it was less than 50 degrees. After thinking about this, I believe it was the coldest temperature I'd experienced since the first trip to Glacier NP (a long time ago).

On the way to camp, I encountered some elk along the side of the road. Although I've seen many elk this summer, this was especially cool because the road was not busy, they were close to the road, and I captured one sitting down.

Day 64
I really only had one day to visit the park. I purposefully chose a camp in the southern section of the park so I could get out earlier the next day.

Unlike my first two east coast parks, I've been to GSMNP three times previously. Yet, somehow I forgot how incredibly large the park is (especially for being east of the Mississippi). As a result, I chose to focus more on driving than hiking.

I started by driving the park's main road, which is actually an extension of Blue Ridge Parkway. From there, I connected to the road to Cades Cove, which has a slow, 12-mile, scenic driving loop. Most of my photos of the park were from this loop, including one of the better landscapes.

The speed limit on this road is 20 mph. It's meant for vehicles to move slowly, but not too slowly. Like many of the other parks, signs are posted which say to use turnouts to stop or to let other vehicles pass. I was in Tennessee, where the average teeth per person competes with IQ year after year.

Eventually I came to a place where I could not move. My first thought was, There's a bear up there! My second thought, immediately following, was, If it's a deer or an elk, I'm going to punch somebody.

It wasn't a bear.

It was three bears, in a tree. I took a million photos and tried to keep only the best. This one starts the set. This one, immediately following the set, is of all the people taking photos of the bears. I decided to act as tourist here because I really wanted some black bear photos. And I'd say I got some!

There were two rangers here attempting to move traffic along and keep people far enough from the tree. It was a good strategy - they had everyone drive past the tree, park and get out of their vehicles to take photos. This way, all the tourists were only on one side of the tree, giving the bears proper room and, if they felt uncomfortable, a direction in which to leave the area.

At one point, two morons stepped out of their car directly under the tree in the road. At that point, Mama Bear walked clear over to the other side of the tree, directly above them. This is when the ranger began screaming at them. I wish she wouldn't have, I wanted to see someone (who deserved it) get eaten.

After completing the loop, I headed back to camp, stopping at a trail called Quiet Walkway on the way. There are several of these throughout the park and they are awesome! The park is overcrowded, but much of the population remains either on the road or on the most popular trails. Therefore, these walkways are secluded and a nice break from the people. I tried my hand at some more moving water.

About the Park and Its Bears
I've talked about overcrowded parks on many occasions this summer. I wanted to put it into perspective for you, so I've created a list of the top five most visited parks (from 2010), their area and the ensuing calculation of visitors per year per acre. Here you go:

1) Grand Canyon: 4.4 million visitors / 1.2 million acres = 3.67
2) Yosemite: 3.9 million visitors / 0.76 million acres = 5.13
3) Yellowstone: 3.6 million visitors / 2.2 million acres = 1.63
4) Rocky Mountain: 3.0 million visitors / 0.26 million acres = 11.54
5) Olympic: 2.8 million visitors / 0.92 million acres = 3.04

There are little caveats here that are somewhat important. For example, it looks like Rocky Mountain should be by far the most crowded, yet you can hike through most of the park (compared to Grand Canyon, where you can't hike much of it at all).

The reason I point this out is because I have complained about how crowded some of these parks are throughout the summer. But, Grand Canyon isn't really #1. Great Smoky Mountains is with 9.5 million visitors and 0.52 acres or 18.3 visitors/acre/year. So, #2-6 most visited parks are separated by 1.6 million visitors, while #1 and #2 are separated by 5.1 million!

This park is incredibly crowded. I've been talking about how dumb people are in some of these other parks, but you can almost certainly double that stupidity in this park (also considering its location).

Anyways, the point of all of this is to inform you how busy this park is, even in September. But I also wanted to discuss bears in the park. Black bears do not hunt people. Black bears do not care about people unless they are messing with their cubs (humans likewise defend their babies viciously). Black bears, however, become aggressive when they are given free handouts in the form of food. Afterwards, they expect every human to do the same. Then the parks service hires someone to kill the bear because it is being aggressive.

Anyways, this led me to do some reflecting. What are these national parks really? My best definition is zoos without cages. Places where we let animals run wild, unless they act too wild, then we kill them. I think the park system is fantastic; we are so lucky to have such a gift. Yet, in more ways than not, they are still unnatural places. Beautifully unnatural.

To end with a fun fact: guess how many bears there are in GSMNP? Wrong. There are 1,500, or two bears for every square mile. So when you see three in a tree, it doesn't mean there aren't a dozen more by your campsite.

And yet, there's really no reason to fear them.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Album