Hiking through the leaves and past the waterfalls of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the fall
michaelmatti
I had one day in Eastern Tennessee to see as many waterfalls as I could. With heavy rain in the forecast later that day, I found myself trail running to try to fit as many waterfalls in as I could. I managed to visit a few before it started raining but then as I was making my way to this waterfall, it started sprinkling and then turned into a downpour on the hike out. Luckily I was able to see this waterfall, my favorite of the trip, before it really started raining. And luckily I had my
@eddiebauer
rainshell with me to shield my camera from the storm on the hike out. All in all, a wonderful and wet adventure in Eastern Tennessee.
Source: instagram.com
earthstory reblogged
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Tennessee in autumn
Original caption:
On August 17, 2018, I drove away from a promo shoot in Nashville, TN in a rented Jeep Wrangler headed for The Great Smoky Mountains. I was about to set off on my 1st completely solo backpacking trip 2,225 miles away from my home of Pasadena, CA. As I left my rental sitting at the Mount Sterling Trailhead, I couldn't help but keep focused on the thought of bears. This was because my previous trail plan had been cancelled because of aggressive bear activity at campsite #37. Once I was able to overcome the fear of the great black bear, I settled in to what was to become one of the most memorable backpacking trips of my life.
ROUTE DETAILS:
PARKING: Just off of a dirt road at the Mount Sterling Trailhead.
DAY 1: Mount Sterling Trail to Long Bunk Trail to Little Cataloochee Trail to Pretty Hollow Gap Trail ending at Campsite #39
DAY 2: Pretty Hollow Gap Trail to Mount Sterling Ridge Trail to Campsite #38 at Mount Sterling Fire Tower
DAY 3: Mount Sterling Ridge Trail to Mount Sterling Trail ending back at the Trailhead.
TOTAL: 24.34 Miles - 6001 ft. Elevation Gain
CREDITS:
DIRECTOR / EDITOR / GRAPHICS / COLOR / SOUND Christopher R. Abbey crabbey.com
CAMERA Sony a6500 GoPro Hero6 Black
LENS Sigma 16mm f/1.4 Sony FE 50mm f/2.8 Macro
GIMBAL Zhiyun Crane 2
SOFTWARE Edited in Adobe Premiere Graded in Adobe Premiere Lumetri Graphics in After Effects
MUSIC "Singular Unusual" by Muted (Blindly) - Licensed via Artlist.io
Original caption:
Tail of the Dragon at Deals Gap with 318 curves in 11 miles: America’s number one motorcycle and sports car road. Designated US 129, the road is bordered by the Great Smoky Mountains and the Cherokee National Forest with no intersecting roads or driveways to hamper your travel. It is considered “the destination” for thousands of motorcycle and sports car fans throughout the spring, summer, and fall. Can you brave it? It’s best to be cautious as the turns are tight, but the Tail of the Dragon is guaranteed to be the ride of your life
Source: instagram.com
Folded
This beautiful exposure of rocks is part of Bays Mountain, a mountain in the Valley and Ridge province of Tennessee. The vertical lines you see across the road cut are the remnant of dynamiting to allow the road to pass; workers drilled holes in the rock from above and placed dynamite into the holes. When they detonated the dynamite, it blasted away all the rock that used to be where the photographer was standing; creating a solid cliff that won’t collapse when a road is built next to it. The vertical lines are the remnants of the holes drilled for dynamiting.
These rocks started their life as sediments during the Ordovician. At that time, much of what is today the east coast of the United States sat underwater accumulating sediments. These layers are a mixture of carbonates and fine-grained shales, accumulated in quiet water far from the ancient coastline. These layers are part of a geologic unit known as the Sevier shale; several hundred meters of sediment much like this accumulated during this time period. A few hundred million years later, the continent of Africa came rafting in and collided with North America, uplifting the Appalachian Mountains and folding and faulting the sediments deposited off the coastlines of the two continents.
These rocks today are part of the Valley and Ridge province; if you travel through this part of the country, you’ll find long mountain ranges running north-south that are the remnant of these folded and faulted sediments.
These rocks have been warped into a syncline. They’ve been bent up on the sides, a type of fold where the youngest rocks are in the center of the fold. The opposite type of fold is an anticline; in that case, the rocks are bowed upwards in the center, so that the oldest rocks are at the center of the fold. Ironically, this syncline is forming the core of a long ridge even though it seems like the rocks have been folded downwards.
In this case, the folding happened so long ago that even though these rocks were a syncline, the folding is not controlling the topography, erosion is. The rocks at the center of the syncline are harder to erode than the rocks on the limbs, so the center of the syncline is standing up as a mountain today. Something very similar happens at the incredible Sideling Hill outcrop farther north (https://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1yyAl37).
If you look at the image closely, you can see all sorts of fractures that have been filled with newly grown minerals. These are especially common right at the axis of the fold, where the rocks have been bent the most.
-JBB
Image credit: James St. John https://flic.kr/p/Y5jzAf
References: https://bit.ly/2N7JOdY https://on.doi.gov/2tKfmxl
Source: facebook.com
Exploring the hills, waterfalls, wildlife, and outcrops of the Thunderhead Sandstone in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Original caption:
We knew last year after we ended our vacation at the smokies that we had to come back, now a year later we were super exited to drive back. The cabin we rented last year was occupied so we found another one, on top of the mountain it said…they forgot to mention the wild off road with creeks to cross and angles that were almost to steep to drive without a 4×4.So we ended up in a cabin roosa’s nest super nice house with great mountain views after a long day we opened up a bottle of wine to cheers on the beginning of a two week mountain adventure…
Our goal was to visit new places and hopefully see and film some wildlife, and make more time lapses then last year. On our first day we explored the area of Glenn falls in highlands NC and was pleasantly surprised that the trail started on top of the waterfall, what an amazing view with the mountain ranges in the background. Usually most waterfalls are surrounded with woods and no wide range views but this one had it all…all three stages of the trail had different views very nice. So we drove back the next day with all our gear even more than last year but it was all worth it to make some incredible footage.
To make some nice fog time lapses we decided this year to go to black rock mountain state park just over the border in Georgia. The park offers many great overlooks so that was perfect one overlook was a hike of two miles it said moderate to strenuous, but had the feeling that was an understatement of course with all the pounds of gear on your body it clouds your judgment.
Back at the cabin we took Chucky (yes he is still with us almost 15 year old jack Russell now, he also loves the mountains) for a walk in the huge backyard of the house it was more a private forest and the owner had several wildlife viewing chairs in the trees that was an extra bonus. Chucky found part of a skull still not sure what animal but it had some big teeth, from that moment we start hearing sounds around us and saw a deer jump away unfortunately we didn’t have our camera so no footage of the deer. We did see two deer again a groundhog and many birds. With the wildlife chairs in the trees and noises surrounding us, we felt like we were secluded from the world although it was just in the back yard. Veerle stayed one full day in there filming with her canon T3i and told me she could easily spend an extra two weeks just in the back yard.
One late afternoon we drove to Panther town valley west entrance I had read on the website they call it the Yosemite of the east… so that says a lot. The drive up there reminded us somewhat back of Yosemite with walls of rock only smaller then the real deal in Yosemite of course… that afternoon we only did the salt rock view but oh boy what a view. We met a guy that explained us what mountains we were looking at and he was so kind he even gave us his trail map because we wanted to come back the next day to capture this beauty.
Then it was time for us to go find some elk we drove to the south entrance of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and stopped at the Oconaluftee visitor center with the mountain farm museum. As we were walking into the farm museum we could hear in the distance a haunting scream no it was not a lost soul trapped in the farm building, it was an elk bull bulging in the distance. It was the first time in my life I heard that sound in real life from that moment the beautiful farm building wasn’t able to keep us there we packed up our stuff to go find the animal.
We hiked all the trails around the area and had no luck several hours later we drove to a field by the job center located behind the visitor center and there he was Big Daddy as the locals call him. With his 12 cows a real Casanova he was running from one lady to another lady all very beautiful to look at but very hard to capture. Next day we drove back there and there he was again this time they all were grazing the beautiful fields and was able to capture some nice footage. Veerle also captured some footage of another bull later in the day by the farm buildings and is going to make a video with the wildlife and birds from the smokies as well as a time lapse movie.
We felt so grateful to be there and see these beautiful creatures this was at the end of our vacation. The last day we left my camera at the home and did some sightseeing a long the Blue Ridge Parkway and Soco falls where Veerle made her last time lapse of the two week adventure in the Smoky Mountains. Nature is so powerful to be able to capture a little fraction of it make me feel so strong yet so vulnerable…
Here are some pictures we took with the Iphone. Equipment we have used is the Sony PMW-F3 uncompressed S-log, Canon T3, Canon 40D, Nikon lenses, Kessler motorized Cine Slider etc….
exploringnc Frozen waterfalls in North Carolina captured over the last couple of days. A rare and beautiful sight! Waterfalls include Catawba Falls, Big Crabtree Creek Falls, Falls Creek Falls, Toms Creek Falls, and Upper Toms Creek Falls, all located in northern NC and the Blue Ridge Mountains of NC
earthstory reblogged
The secret fate of all life. Great Smoky Mountain National Park @zeisenhauer
earthstory reblogged
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Great Smoky Mountains Tennessee Heathzphotos
Source: heathzphotos
This video is worth getting through just for the amazing timelapse clips of the fireflies lighting up the landscape.
For a few short weeks each year, Elkmont Ghost Town in Smoky Mountains National Park becomes the site of the most magnificent synchronized firefly (Photinus carolinus) gathering in the world. Resembling an odd forest rave party, male fireflies enter the mating season by flashing their lights brightly four to right times in unison for about ten seconds, followed by a eight to twelve second darkness in which females may respond with their lights.
Overwhelmed by the tourist onslaught in the recent years, National Park Service now restricts the number of people who visit Elkmont during the peak of firefly season. Fireflies require total darkness to mate and humans who use flashlights, as well as produce any any other form of light pollution, have led to decrease of fireflies across the world. National Park Service has responded through strict lighting regulations in Smoky Mountains National Park which prohibit use of lights which may disturb and drive out the fireflies from the park.
This video was filmed as part of SKYGLOW (skyglowproject.com), an ongoing crowdfunded quest to explore the effects and dangers of urban light pollution in contrast with some of the most incredible dark sky areas in North America. This project is being produced in collaboration with International Dark-Sky Association (darksky.org), a non-profit fighting for the preservation of night skies around the globe.
This holiday gives me a reason to share some videos from my favorite projects in the national parks. Here’s a clip from the “More than Just Parks” project in Great Smoky Mountains National Park - a project that tries to explore these amazing landscapes in depth, using timelapse and zoom videography.
Southeast Wildfires
We’re used to hearing about devastating wildfire in the US southwest, but not the southeast. About 44 wildfires across 7 states have burned more than 100,000 acres (40,000 hectares) since late October. At least 7 people are confirmed dead, others are missing, homes have been destroyed, and more than 14,000 people have been evacuated from affected communities. The normally wet climate has been struck by an unprecedented drought. Add to that the falling leaves of autumn, invasive beetles killing thousands of trees, decades of forest management that included fire suppression leading to an abundance of fuel, high winds, and ignition sources ranging from downed power lines to arsonists, and disaster has struck.
One fire in Tennessee became especially dangerous when 90-mph (145-kph) winds pushed a fire down the mountains toward the city of Gatlinburg forcing residents to flee. It also knocked power lines down onto dry fallen leaves sparking more fires. Unfortunately, not everyone escaped.
Those who live near the fires keep saying over and over that they’ve never seen anything like it. Unfortunately, they may see it again. Climate change has caused droughts to be more frequent and longer lasting in the southeast.
On Wednesday, rain finally did arrive, but it brought severe weather with it including lightning and tornadoes. Some of the burned areas are in the mountains, making mudslides a serious concern. Flood warnings have been issued in places that, just a few days earlier, were evacuated due to the threat of fire. While the rain is expected to help slow down the fires, it’s no guarantee that it will put them out. If hot spots remain after the rain, the fires could flare up again.
- RE
Photo Credit: National Park Service http://bit.ly/2fT38gk
References: http://to.pbs.org/2fIcoAF http://trib.in/2gLDmrZ http://bit.ly/2g8Vtbq http://cbsn.ws/2fSv43P
Source: facebook.com
The main road through Great Smoky Mountains National Park near peak fall colors
