Visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) is always special.  It’s a place of mountain streams, lush green growth, diversity.  But, it’s also an incredibly busy National Park, borderd by towns that are comical in their loud shouting for attention and visitation.  Every year when I finish my time within GSMNP, I hook the Blue Ridge Parkway north, back towards my home.  It’s an instantaneous feeling for me.  The crowds disappear; it’s too early for heavy visitation along the Parkway.  The speed limits increase.  The road becomes more gently sinuous.  The orientation of the park becomes linear, a ribbon of protected lands that move along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I wasn’t sure that the Blue Ridge Parkway would be open this year, or to what extent it might be.  Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on Western North Carolina.  Landslides and downed trees remain.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that access was open from Cherokee all the way to NC-215, an area that I could drop off and access my next campsite.  I rolled the windows down and let the rhythm of the road work on me.  Soon, I was pulling off and exploring various early season spring ephemeral wildflowers.  One of my strange new habits as of a few years ago is walking the Blue Ridge Parkway.  There are so many amazing things directly near the roadside that it has been serving dual roles for me:  a roadway and a trail.

During one of my walks where spring was bursting with new colorful tree buds along the roadway, I saw a wonderful scene where the structure of a tree was pushed forward against the bright red and yellow buds of new leaf growth behind.  I’m not very good at these types of images.  I want to improve.  And I don’t have any long glass in my kit–which would provide the compression that might elevate this opportunity.  I pulled my longest lens, a two-hundred millimeter and tried my best.  I’m not sure if a shallower depth of field would’ve directed the eye more effectively?  Or if a different framing would’ve been more pleasing?  Hopefully, I’ll get the opportunity to continue exploring these questions in the future!

Camera:  Nikon D850
Lens:  Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 @ 200mm
Tripod:  Really Right Stuff TVC-33

Date taken:  April 25, 2025
Settings:  f11, 1/50 second, iso 250