Frozen Beauty

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant. – Anne Bradstreet

© 2012 Patty Hankins

When I headed to the Great Smoky Mountains last month, I wasn’t sure what I’d find to photograph.

In January 2011, there was lots of snow. – So much snow that I couldn’t visit several sections of the park – the roads were closed. This year, while it was cold, there wasn’t much snow. Much to my surprise – I found incredible beauty to photograph.

© 2012 Patty Hankins

On my second night in Gatlinburg, the weather forecast was for rain, turning to freezing rain, turning to snow. So depending on the temperature, there was a chance of a good snowfall. As it turned out, less than 1/2 an inch of snow fell, but it still gave me a chance to photograph a snow-covered leaf.

© 2012 Patty Hankins

As I explored the park that day, I discovered that the freezing rain was creating more photographic opportunities than the snow fall had. The rain was heavy enough, and the temperature dropped quickly enough, that plants were covered in ice.

The plants looked like they were part of a winter wonderland.

© 2012 Patty Hankins

As I hiked a trail, enjoying the solitude of being along in what is usually a very crowded park, I came across some ice formations. I’d never seen anything like them before. What struck me was how delicate and beautiful the ice was.

As I photographed the ice, I realized what I was trying to show in my photos from this trip – the cold, the quiet – and most of the unexpected beauty.

© 2012 Patty Hankins

I was also capturing scenes that no one else was likely to see. As the temperature rose and the ice melted, the scenes I photographed disappeared. And while they may have refrozen the next night – it would have been into something different from what I had photographed.

© 2012 Patty Hankins

The Smokies have always been a very special place for me to visit. I love the wildflowers in the spring, the lush forest and rushing streams of summer, and the colors of fall. I always meet wonderful people on the trails and around the park.

© 2012 Patty Hankins

This trip – I discovered how beautiful the Smokies can be on a quiet winter day.

September in the Smokies!

Sunrise at Clingman’s Dome, Great Smoky Mountains National Park © 2011 Patty Hankins

I spent an amazing five days photographing in the mountains of Tennessee last month. While I have visited and photographed in the Smoky Mountains several times in the past few years, this was my first late summer visit. What I discovered was incredible sunrises after 7 AM, peaceful streams, different wildflowers than I’ve seen in the past, and no crowds. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited park in the National Park System, so finding a time of year when it isn’t very crowded was wonderful!

Mistflower © 2011 Patty Hankins

 

Since the park was so quiet, I was able to sit by a stream for an hour – just reading a book and relaxing. Another day, I spent a couple of hours in just one corner of a field at Cades Cove – photographing wildflowers and watching the deer across the road.

Little Pigeon River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park © 2011 Patty Hankins

 

In addition to my time in the National Park, I spent a day exploring the Cherokee National Forest with a friend. We drove for hours on the forest roads, stopping to photograph when something caught our eye. It was one of the best days I’ve had photographing in a very long time.

Canada Goldenrod © 2011 Patty Hankins

What I realized on this trip is how important it is to just slow down and enjoy where I found myself. Usually when I’m on a photo trip I’m in a hurry because I don’t want to miss anything – wondering what if an unknown wildflower is just around the bend. I had a wonderful time – I may have missed seeing a few things because of the slower pace of this trip. But that’s OK – because I thoroughly enjoyed seeing what was around me.

Hemlock © 2011 Patty Hankins

Next time you head out into nature – whether it’s somewhere familiar – or somewhere new – how about trying what I discovered this trip. Slowing down and completely experiencing where you are and what you are seeing can be incredible.

Cardinal Flower – Lobelia Cardinalis

One of my favorite summer wildflowers is the Cardinal flower (lobelia cardinalis). I just love the bright red flowers. They add a great splash of color in late summer and early fall.

This year, I photographed Cardinal flowers in two locations. The first was a single cardinal flower along the Little Brier Gap Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in late July. This was the only Cardinal flower I saw on my summer trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway and in the Smokies.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

A few weeks later, I found one more Cardinal flower at the Wild Gardens of Acadia in Maine’s Acadia National Park.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I’m hoping that next summer I’ll be able to find a group of Cardinal flowers growing together. I suspect that would make a fantastic photograph.

Morning Glory and Wild Potato Vine

I recently photographed two members of the Convolvulacae family – the bindeweed or morning glory family – in North Carolina and Tennessee. These plants are known for their funnel shaped flowers.

The first flower I photographed was a purple tall morning glory (ipomoea purpurea) at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, North Carolina.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

The next morning, I found some wonderful pink morning glories growing along the side of the road on the Blue Ridge Parkway, just south of Asheville.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

The second member of the Convolvulacaea family I photographed is the Wild Potato Vine (Ipomoea pandurata). The vine grows from an edible tuber-like root that is similar to a sweet potato.

I photographed this group of three wild potato flowers at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I then found a few more blossoms to photograph at the Metcalf Bottoms Picnic area in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Elk in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

One of my goals for my recent trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was to see the elk. In 2001, elk were reintroduced to the Smoky Mountains. The new herd was started with 25 elk from the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. Since then, the herd has grown to almost 100 elk. Most of the elk can be found in the Cataloochee region of the park.

So last Tuesday morning,  I was waiting at the gate for the road out to the meadows to open. Within minutes, I saw several large bull elk out in the field! They are incredible to see. Be sure to check out the racks of antlers on these bull elks.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

That morning, I also saw a few female elk off in the distance in one of the other fields. I wasn’t able to photograph them.

But I was still really happy with the photos I had taken – and I’d seen the elk in the wild!

The next morning, I was at the Mountain Farm Museum at the Oconaluftee Entrance to the park. As I was photographing Holly, the extremely friendly barn cat, I saw what I thought was the biggest deer I’d ever seen walking across the field. It never occurred to me that it was another elk – since I thought the elk were only at Cataloochee – and this animal didn’t have any eartags or a radio collar.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

After a while, the “deer” wandered off and eventually came back and entered into the farm area. This next photo should have made it peferctly clear that this wasn’t a large white tailed deer.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I think was checking out the exhibits at the Mountain Farm Museum. He then wandered over to the fruit trees for a snack.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Then he decided it was time to visit the garden for a bite to eat. He has a green leaf from the garden in his mouth in this next photo.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

For the next few minutes, the elk grazed at the garden and walked around the Mountain Farm Museum, posing nicely in a few spots.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Finally, after a last visit to the fruit trees for a bite to eat, the elk headed off into the woods as more people started arriving at the Mountain Farm Museum.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I arrived at the Mountain Farm Museum shortly after 7 AM and was photographing for over an hour. For most of that time, I was the only person there. It was wonderful.

Later that same day, I was at Cades Cove and saw some white tailed deer – and that’s when I began to wonder if I’d really been photographing a large deer that morning. After checking with some people on Twitter and Facebook, I found at that some of the elk have migrated to the Cherokee/Oconaluftee area.

On Thursday, I spoke with one of the park rangers, who confirmed that yes it was an elk I had photographed. She was able to identify him as one of the male yearling elk born last year. She had a bit of a laugh when she saw one of the photos – apparently the elk aren’t supposed to go into the Mountain Farm Museum area – much less eat the fruit off the trees or snack from the garden!

Seeing and photographing the elk at Great Smoky Mountains National Park was amazing. They are beautiful animals. They can also be very dangerous – they are big – and if they see you as a threat you can be seriously injured by an elk. Park regulations require that people stay at least 50 yards away from the elk. All of my photos were taken from a distance using my 100-400mm lens at 400mm. The photos are all crops of the original images.

If you get a chance to visit the Smoky Mountains, be sure to try to see the elk. They are magnificent!

More Smoky Mountain Wildflowers

I just got back from another wonderful week of photographing wildflowers along the Blue Ridge Parkway and in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I came home with about 130 GB of photos – so it’s going to take me a while to get them weeded and edited.

One of the wonderful aspects of spring wildflowers in the Smoky Mountains is the incredible combinations of wildflowers that can be seen growing together in the park. In January, I posted a few photos of wildflower combinations from my 2008 trip. Here are some of my favorite combinations of wildflowers from my April 2009 trip to Tennessee.

First is a hillside of yellow trillium (trillium luteum) and purple phacelia (phacelia bipinnatifida). The Yellow Trillium are found throughout the Smoky Mountains. I found this patch surrounded by purple phacelia along River Road.

Yellow Trillium and Purple Phacelia (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Next is a patch of crested dwarf irises (iris cristata)  and star chickweed (stellaria pubera) around the base of a tree. I photographed these flowers along the side of the road in the Greenbrier section of the Smokies, just before the start of the Old Settlers Trail.

Crested Dwarf Irises and Star Chickweed (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Finally, a showy orchis (galearis spectabilis) in front of a patch of crested dwarf irises (iris cristata) along the Ash Hopper Trail.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I hope my photos can give you a sense of the incredible beauty of the wildflowers in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I’ve fallen totally in love with the wildflowers and the park. And even though I’ve only been home for a couple of days, I’m already trying to figure out when I can get back to what has quickly become my favorite national park.

Vasey’s Trillium – Trillium Vaseyi

I’m just back from a fantastic trip to Tennessee where I spent more than a week photographing the spring wildflowers. The wildflowers are incredible this year. 2009 was the second year in a row that I’ve attended the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage

Last year, I photographed a couple of different types of trillium – the Sweet White Trillium and the Yellow Trillium. This year, I was able to photograph three additional trilliums – Vasey’s Trillium, Catesby’s Trillium and Sweet Betsy Trillium.

Here are some of my photos of the Vasey’s Trillium. These flowers were photographed along the Ash Hopper Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. These three Vasey’s Trillium were the only ones I saw all week – and believe me I was looking for them.

Vasey’s Trillium (Trillium vaseyi) are easy to identify. They are the trilliums with the red flowers that hang below the leaves.

The blossoms of the Vasey’s Trillium

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Side view of the blossom

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Side view of the Vasey’s Trillium- the leaves on this trillium can grow quite large

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally – a Vasey’s Trillium from above

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I’ll be posting more wildflower photographs from the Smokies in the next few weeks. I had a wonderful time in TN and took lots (and lots) of photos.

Smoky Mountain Streams

On our trip to the Smoky Mountains last spring, Bill and I spent some time photographing the streams along Newfound Gap Road. We were amazed at the power of the water rushing down the mountains, and how green and lush all the vegetation was.

Here’s one of the streams

Smoky Mountain Stream (c) 2008 Patty Hankins

Further down the mountain, we came across a pair of streams that created a small pair of waterfalls as the streams joined together. We spent almost an hour photographing this one location.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

At one point, the water created a small waterfall over some tree roots.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

This was just a few of the streams we photographed last spring. We’re both still processing our photos from the trip – I’m sure as we work our way through the photos, I’ll be posting more photos of some of the streams.

Smoky Mountains in the Fog

Last spring, Bill and I spent a few days in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on our way home from a trip to Florida. One morning, we planned on photographing sunrise from Clingman’s Dome – the same place I had photographed my Smoky Mountain Sunrise photograph from a few weeks earlier.

Smoky Mountain Sunrise (c) 2008 Patty Hankins

As we drove up Newfound Gap Road from Gatlinburg, it started to get foggy. The higher up we drove, the foggier it got. By the time we got to Newfound Gap, we could hardly see anything. So much for sunrise.

As we headed back down the mountain, we noticed how the fog and clouds were moving across the mountains. There were constant swirls of white among the mountains, revealing and hiding incredible views. Here are some of the photos we took as we heading back down Newfound Gap Road.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

Along Newfound Gap Road I (c) 2008 William Lawrence

Along Newfound Gap Road II (c) 2008 William Lawrence

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

Wood Betony or Common Lousewort

One of the wildflowers I photographed on my recent trips to the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway was Wood Betony. It’s scientific name is Pedicularis canadensis.

Wood Betony is also known as Common Lousewort. Originally it was believed that livestock could become infected with lice after eating the plant. The plants grow to about 12″ tall and are easily identified by the two-lipped bi-colored flowers. The upper lip of the flower is hooded. It usually blooms from April through June.

In April, I photographed the Wood Betony along Chestnut Top Trail in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. I saw a few single plants along the trail.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

A few weeks later, in early May, we were on the Blue Ridge Parkway south of Asheville and found several large clusters of Wood Betony. The plants were much fuller, with many more leaves than the ones I’d seen in the Smoky Mountains a few weeks earlier.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

As I was finishing photographing the cluster of Wood Betony, I happened to look down on the plants from directly above, and found a great angle to photograph them from.

(c) 2008 Patty Hankins

Wood Betony was one of the more unusual wildflowers I photographed on my trips this spring. Once I knew what to look for, the distinctive hooded flowers were not too difficult to find in shady areas along the Blue Ridge Parkway.