Into the heart of the park

Wednesday
Roger’s knee was about the same this morning, so obviously hiking was out of the question, so we drove up into the heart of the National Park, stopping off at various viewpoints to admire the view, top left, and Lower left, which is the view towards Chimney Tops. At Newfound Gap, you reach the boundary between Tennessee and North Carolina, at a height of 5,046 ft, and the highest point of the road between Gatlinburg and Cherokee. The Appalachian Trail crosses over the Newfound Gap Road and straddles the state line between North Carolina and Tennessee for most of its length through the park. I left Roger sitting in one of our chairs reading a book, and enjoying the magnificent view, while I went off for a walk along the AT, (bottom centre), just two miles return. From Newfound Gap, a road then continues to Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in the National Park, at 6,643 feet. It is the highest point in Tennessee, and the third highest mountain east of the Mississippi, after Mt. Mitchell and Mt. Craig, both located in Mt. Mitchell State Park in western North Carolina. The observation tower on the summit of Clingmans Dome (thumbnail picture) offers spectacular 360° views of the Smokies and beyond, and is accessible via a paved, though pretty steep 1/2 mile long path, so Roger had to make do with the still amazing views from the car park. On clear days views from Climgmans Dome extend up to 100 miles! We continued across the park into North Carolina, and visited Mingus Falls, in Cherokee territory. On the map they were shown as being close to the road, so I had hoped maybe Roger would be able to see them too. Unfortunately, they were accessible via a long flight of wooden steps, so I went up on my own and took a number of photographs to show him later. By this time, it was time to head back to our cabin, which unfortunately took much longer than we anticipated, as they were doing resurfacing work on a 3-mile stretch of the main road through the park, and whilst the delay had been perhaps 15-20 minutes on the way way up, on the way back we reckon it cost us about 45 minutes!

Step count: 13,784