Les Jones

Smokies documentary will show vintage park footage

Monday, August 24th, 2009 | East Tennessee | Permalink | No Comments |

Smoky Mountain Hiking Blog - Vintage Views of Great Smoky Mountains National Park:

Much of the collection of home movie clips were derived from Jack Huff, a Gatlinburg native who in 1926 built a lodge atop the 6,593-foot Mount LeConte, and Jim Thompson, a Knoxville photographer.

You’ll see rare images of the people who lived in the park and those that helped to make it into a national park, such as Wiley Oakley, the “Roaming Man of the Mountains”, the Walker sisters, the CCC, and men like wilderness advocates Harvey Broome and Carlos Campbell.

There will be two screening of the movie. The first will be in Gatlinburg on Sept. 12. at 7 p.m. at the Riverside Motor Lodge. Tickets are $10 and can be reserved by calling 865-436-0526 or 800-343-1475.

The second screening will be at the East Tennessee History Center in Knoxville on Sept. 18. at 7 p.m. Admission is free.

Sounds great. I need to start lining up a babysitter.

Tags: smokies

Snow!

Monday, February 23rd, 2009 | East Tennessee, Home Life, Photos | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Saturday was sunny and warm. The kids spent the day playing outside. I noticed the first crocuses blooming. Then snow moved in Sunday morning and covered everything in a white blanket. That’s East Tennessee winter for you. It’s enough cold to remind you it’s winter and enough warm to remind you that spring is on the way.

We wanted to see more snow so we took a daytrip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There seemed to be more snow in Walland than at home, but a few miles later in Townsend the snow level had dropped. Once we got in the park it was no better, but we drove to Sugarlands anyway.

Nope. The snow wasn’t any deeper there. We turned up 441 and made our way up the mountains past the Chimneys and Mt. LeCeonte to Newfound Gap, up in the spruce-fir zone. There was a little more snow there along with some impressive icicles from water seeping out of the rocks. It was definitely cold as all get out up on top. We only kept the girls outside for a few minutes before diving back inside the vehicle.

On the way back we stopped in Gatlinburg at Howard’s Steakhouse, where we had a good dinner served by a very nice Romanian waitress with a pretty accent. Howard’s is one of our favorite restaurants in Gatlinburg. It’s on the main drag near the park entrance and we can always find parking. The prices are reasonable and in warm weather we like eating on the back patio which overlooks LeConte Creek. Their pickles are delicious and their onion rings are colossal.

Photography notes: gray snow
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Tags: d40, gatlinburg, smokies, snow, weather