Cades Cove Early Morning Drive

Yellow Goats beard dandelion growing in the fields

Cades Cove Early Morning Drive

Monday June 10, 2019

Dana Koogler 

Cades Cove Pictures starting with frame #106

  I got up early Monday morning with the express purpose of  taking a drive around the Cades Cove Loop Road.  I wanted to check for native orchids. I also wanted to gauge the bloom status of the heirloom gladiolas in the cove.  The forecast called for rain off and on today.  I came prepared for it.
I also came prepared so that if things cleared up I could stick around and do some hiking. 
I was pleasantly surprised to find the traffic light.  I was even more surprised to find that the few folks who were on the loop road were courteous and used the pull offs instead of taking pictures from the middle of the road.      I made record time getting round the loop.    Daylilies and butterfly weed were the flowers of the hour.   Lots of those.  You can see every shade of butterfly weed in the cove from deep red orange to a paler yellow orange.   I saw a few butterflies. One cloudless sulphur moth.
Many frittilaries.      I parked in a few spots and waded out through the fields to check out flowers.
I got me the requisite number of briar scratches. 

  The skies varied between clearing up to gray again.    The mountains at the edges of the cove looked pretty with the wisps of cloud before them.    Yucca plants bloomed in many locations through the fields of the cove. I saw gold finches, bluebirds, robins, sparrows, turkeys, and deer.  No bears today and no snakes.

 Deep red orange butterfly weed and blue mountains.

 Loads of daylilies!

 English plantain.. which I am now noticing as a valuable plant since I learned its benefits and started making salve from it!

 Wisps of cloud

 Yellow Goatsbeard dandelion freshly opened.

    Yarrow

 Daisy fleabane and wild onion heads

 bumblebee on butterfly weed

 Yellow butterfly weed

 Queen Anne's Lace

 Black eyed susans

Wild basil

 Dark and light shades of butterfly weed for comparison

Ragged fringed orchids!

 

 Above and below.. clearing skies?!!

 new to me.. Abrams Blush heirloom gladiola .  I don't know that is the real original name of the flower, but I am calling it that for my own sake til I learn otherwise.

 Need to go back to check to see if these bloom out on the other side of the tree!

    Ditch lilies is what some folks call these beauties, but you can see why!

Turkey Lurkey in the field

 Cherokee Rose

 Dark pink Seven Sisters Rose

 Yucca

 Yucca blossom

 Red Root aka New Jersey tea

 above and below.. rosebay rhododendron buds and bloom

 Above: Old barn and below old house on Lequire Road at the back of the cove toward Dry Valley

   All was well until I got round on the back of the loop when traffic gummed up and came to a halt.
I saw my chance and turned onto Hyatt Lane. I crossed the cove, turned onto Rich Mountain Road and exited that way.  While on the way toward home the skies opened and the rain poured down.
No more hiking today.   But I had a good time and didn't let the traffic or the weather harsh my mellow.

Rich Mountain Road Drive

April 19

Catesby's Trillium growing along Rich Mountain Road

Rich Mountain Road Scenic Drive

Kenny & Dana Koogler 

Good Friday April 19, 2019

  We had the nice surprise of Kenny being off Good Friday!  It was rainy for the morning, and we just did stuff around the house.   The rain cleared off and the sun came out. The day turned pretty so we decided we had to get out of the house a bit.

We went for a short scenic drive along Rich Mountain Road.  Facebook popped up a memory of April 19, 2018.. one year ago we took Gabe for a drive round that road.

It opened today! First day of the Spring season to be able to take advantage of it.

We headed toward Cades Cove.   It was not too bad traffic wise.  We didn't take 

a long time to be able to make it round to the turn off for Rich Mountain Road.

It leads from about halfway round the loop road to the back side of Townsend.

        

 Driving the Cades Cove Loop Road.. the rain and clouds are clearing.

 The mountains in the distance look beautiful.

 View back into Cades Cove from Rich Mountain

 Early Meadow Rue in bloom

 Sweet White Trillium

 Canada violets

 Sunny slope along the road, but very few wildflowers out this year. Maybe we were early?

 View from Rich Mountain toward Dry Valley and Townsend

 above and below views of wet weather cascades along the road

 Below.. a turkey at the end of the road.

  We had a pretty drive and enjoyed it.  It was odd since the same time last year we saw loads of wildflowers bloomed out. Today we saw a fraction of that!

 I talked to my neighbor a few days prior to making this drive.  I relate in the paragraph below what he shared with me.  Email me if you can relate any similar experiences you've had in that vicinity.   

T's Story: 

Our neighbor told me about a strange experience he and his wife had last year. They took a drive on Rich Mountain Road. It is the one that leads out of Cades Cove into Dry Valley at the back of Townsend. He described a certain point along the drive.. a part of the terrain that I remembered immediately. He said as they were driving along approaching that point they saw an older man and woman along the road. They were not dressed for hiking, but looked like they were dressed having come from church. They also were not dressed for the time period. They looked like 1930's -1940s garb they were wearing. Said the couple smiled at them and waved and kept going. They entered the woods. 
They had an odd feeling about it like something was wrong. Yet they kept going and expected to see a vehicle pulled over. Perhaps the couple was venturing out from where they parked. There was one vehicle besides my neighbors on that road.. a truck coming along behind them from Cades Cove. As my neighbors got to the end of the road near Bull Sink at its end.. the truck caught up to them. An upset couple got out and asked them if they had seen the elderly couple? They told them they had. Both couples had the same response of their hackles going up over this. No vehicle was parked anywhere along the way out. There are no dwellings in the area to have come from. It would not be impossible to walk up there from Dry Valley, but it is unlikely. It would bea bit far especially for an elderly couple not dressed for a walk. Has anyone else had this encounter or other odd encounters along that stretch of road? I could tell when he related this to me he was still bothered by it. He said he did not know if what they saw was real or was an encounter with ghosts. He is a Vietnam Vet and tough as iron and not the kind of man given to talk about this sort of thing.

More Walks and Drives

Wild Columbine closeup

More Walks & Drives 

Kenny, Dana & Gabriel Koogler

Tuesday May 8, 2018

  I thought I had finished up with all the trip reports about things we've done over the past few months.  I ran across another bunch of photos that jogged my memory letting me know I was

not quite finished.    I'm batching two of these things together since neither one was terribly

eventful or long.     Back in Spring we took a drive around the Cades Cove Loop Road as a family.   We got out and walked for exercise at some places along the way.     We also went

for an evening hike along the Middle Prong trail at Tremont on another day.     

  

The day we drove to Tremont Little River was flowing wonderfully.

Above and below are a couple shots of a huge patch of wild columbine along Laurel Creek Road.

  Once we got to Tremont we took a short walk up Middle Prong. It was pretty and cooler now that the sun was sinking lower.

 Small cascade on Lynn Camp Prong .

 Scene immediately upstream from that low cascade. The gloom of the forest this time of day is spell binding.

 Above: small but picturesque cascade on Lynn Camp Prong

 Above and below: I found what I was hoping for along the trail today.  I saw loads of Puttyroot
orchids.    Some were just opening.

  The day we drove around Cades Cove we went completely around the loop road.  Gabe wanted to sit on my lap or Kenny's lap while we were barely crawling along in the jeep.  We let him, but a ranger came by and said we needed to put him back in his car seat.  We did, but soon as we got where she couldn't see us we let him get out again.   He was not likely to get hurt when all traffic is going along at 10 mph or stopped every little whip stitch. 

Above: pretty day when we drove round the loop road.   Big puffy clouds and sunshine.

The first of about eight bears we saw today.  Front side of the loop. head down eating.  Not a good photo.

 First place we stopped for exercise was the Baptist church side road.

 Papaw, Gabe and Carsie in the cemetery at the Baptist church.  It is such a pretty spot.

Above ... a view out across the cove from Hyatt Lane.   We pulled down in here today for me to try to follow the creek to Shields pond.   

I am walking along Abrams Creek in the field heading toward Shields Pond.  It started off pretty easy.

Found a hog trap sitting by the path on the way toward the pond.

Looking out across the field about 1/2 way to Shields Pond.  The path disappeared and I was just plowing through tussocks of tall grass and weeds.   I finally turned back because Kenny and Gabe were waiting on me.  It was going to take too long.   I'll have to try this when I am alone or with just
Kenny.  I will also try it from the back side of the loop. It is shorter to just cut across the field from there.  It will be about 0.2 miles instead of 1/2 mile one way.    The walk becomes a complete off trail hike and the stream diverges making it much harder to follow than I anticipated. 
Here is a link to Alan Cressler's photo of Shields Pond Shields Pond Picture
It is one of the bodies of water that I want to visit in the cove and surrounding area. 

Below.. back side of the loop we saw another bear.  It was a good chance for Gabriel to get a complete look at a bear! 

     That is it. I am all caught up with the Spring trip reports. Now if I can stay caught up with the current ones I'll be thrilled.