Tennessee Vacation – Great Smokey Mountains, Clingman’s Dome and Andrew’s Bald

So Sweet Sweet and I are up early the next morning to tackle The Great Smokey Mountains and our first stop is Clingman’s Dome, which is the highest point in the Great Smokey Mountains. It’s quite a drive up to the top, but well worth it.

At some point, there’s this nice parking lot and incredible views so we think to ourselves that we should get out an take a few pictures. This is the view getting out of our car.

Sweet Sweet and I (BTW, it was close to 50 degrees this morning).

The vistas.

Then we realize that we’re actually there at Clingman’s Dome, the path was just around the bend a bit. Back into the car.

The walk to the top of this observation deck is only 0.5 miles, but this was the freaking toughest 0.5 miles I’ve ever walked. The walk was at a very steep grade and I was actually winded when we got to the top.

Here’s Clingman’s Dome.

Sweet Sweet and I at the top of Clingman’s Dome.

Some of the views from the structure.

We walk down (it was much easier getting down that going up) and there’s a 2 or 3 mile hike to a place called Andrew’s Bald. Since were were already here and there weren’t too many tourists around, we decided to start hiking and see what happens.

The path itself was very pretty.

Me.

Sweet Sweet.

Turns out a “bald” is a grassy area on the top of a mountain. It was actually incredibly beautiful because there were all of these azaleas on the top of the mountain (pink, orange, red, etc.).