Day 9 - Cataloochee

Notice all the squiggly lines on the east side of this map. Those are the switchbacks
and hairpin curves on the Mt. Sterling and Cove Creek Roads

Sunday, May 15, 2022

Weather - partly cloudy, with a little bit of rain, temps between 68 and 72F (with a high of 80F in Gatlinburg)

Steps - Shaun: 6,797, Shannon: 6,513

Varmints - multiple chipmunks, 2 woodchucks, turkeys, and some donkeys (but no elk!)

After our hiking day yesterday, we decided to do a driving day today. And boy, did we ever drive! Our adventures took us far afield into the eastern side of the park, and we added another 200 hard miles to the Jeep, climbing and descending mountains, bumping over rough gravel roads, and trying not to fall off the side of a cliff, Jurassic Park-style. Of course, Shaun is a professional mountain road driver, and she carried us through with perfect aplomb, so we lived to tell the tale.

Random stuff seen on our journey

Flame azalea

Rhododendron in full glory

Our day started with a stop at a coffee shop for Shannon, which just so happened to be in a complex with an outdoor gear store, general store, and café. Shaun went to buy a bottle brush at the outdoor gear store while Shannon was waiting for her coffee, which took awhile, so when Shaun wasn't at the car, Shannon knew she was lost to the Gods of Teva, Smartwool, and HydroFlask. Shannon managed to extricate her from their clutches only after Shaun had bought another pair of Teva flip-flops, a sasquatch fleece (of course), and the aforementioned bottle brush (thank goodness!). We stopped at the general store and the café for good measure before finally heading out of Townsend for our intended destination, the Cataloochee community loop road.

We had taken the route east of Townsend several times by now, so we decided to just stay on US 321 the whole way, which we had not done before. Big mistake. This took us directly through the middle of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg (there was a reason why Google usually routed us on backroads to avoid those areas), and we were not prepared mentally, emotionally, or spiritually for how overwhelming both would be. We were happy to escape their clutches unscathed and proceed further down US 321 and then on to Hwy 32, a windy, forested road that forms the northern edge of the park in that area. Eventually that road turned to gravel and became the Mt. Sterling Road, which turned south and took us up and over Mt. Sterling on a bumpy, muddy remote track BARELY wide enough for two cars.

Shaun was having fun on the twisty paved roads, but once it turned to gravel and she had to slow down to crawl over rocks and potholes, the drive became a lot less enjoyable. What amazed us was that there were still houses back there! So, those folks had to drive those roads regularly and receive services out there too! They're obviously heartier souls than us. In any case, we both welcomed our entry into the park proper, though the road didn't get any better (Shaun says it got worse), and our eventual arrival at the Cataloochee Group Campground, where we stopped to eat some lunch and relieve our poor, abused bladders.

Cataloochee

Pipevine swallowtails puddling (ingesting salts and minerals they need to reproduce from the
damp, sandy roadside—we also saw them doing this on horse poop and other animal dung).

A lyreleaf sage plant growing in a field in Cataloochee.
We've seen these blooming all over the park.

After the drama of the drive through the mountains, the loop road in Cataloochee was a bit anticlimactic. There was beautiful scenery and some historic buildings, like we saw in Cades Cove, but no animals, including the elk Shaun was pining for. Shannon read aloud the auto tour description of the area, which was the largest settlement of Euro-Americans in the area that would become the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, supporting over 1,200 people at its peak. 

An overlook off of Cove Creek Road—notice the rain
clouds overhead.

We drove to the end Cataloochee Road, and then retraced our steps through the valley and out, this time via Cove Creek Road. While still winding and narrow, this route was much shorter and mostly paved, and there were a few areas we could pull off to take in some vistas. We were eventually dumped out on I-40, surprisingly picturesque for being an interstate, but unfortunately, we hit construction pretty soon after and were stuck in traffic for a good 20 minutes. 

Breaking free of the congestion, we meandered our way back west toward our cabin, taking our usual path bypassing Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge (we learned our lesson there!), but outside of Wears Valley, we decided to take the Foothills Parkway instead of continuing on Hwy 321. This would take us past Townsend, but drop us further along Hwy 321 so that we could just backtrack a little.

We saw the most beautiful, expansive vistas we've encountered on the trip so far on the Foothills Parkway. Some of them truly did take our breath away, and we could finally see the blue hazy mountains we had been expecting. 

Along the way, we also saw some chipmunks and a couple of woodchucks, including one at a pull-off that was eating its dinner and could not have cared less about us. Shannon got some good pictures of that one.

Finally reaching the cabin around 7pm, we at a quick dinner of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches before joining our weekly family Zoom call at 8. We had one more activity planned for the day: viewing the total lunar eclipse, which was due to reach totality at 11:30pm. We had scoped out some spots to drive to potentially see the moon, depending on where it was in the sky, and one of them just down the road from our cabin turned out to be a perfect viewing location. We arrived there at 11:15, and the moon was already almost totally covered. It was also a blood moon, so the eclipsed moon had an orangey-reddish cast. Shannon managed to get some good pictures of it with Shaun's big camera, and after the moon was completely covered, we stayed and just took in the night. There were fireflies blinking around us, stars peeking through the thin veil of clouds, and a roaring chorus of insects and animals talking to each other in the dark. It was wonderful.

The moon was supposed to be covered for an unusually long amount of time, so we decided not to wait for it to start leaving the Earth's shadow. We returned to the cabin, finished this blog, and went to bed. Tomorrow is a low-key day; we'll stay at the cabin, do a puzzle, cook some stuff, and just take it easy.