I took advantage of an opportunity during Thanksgiving week in November 2012 to watch the sunset from Clingmans Dome. On the drive up the Newfound Gap Road, I stopped at Morton's Overlook to take a picture of a sun dog or parhelion. At the second overlook on the Clingmans Dome Road, I stopped to take a picture of the Deep Creek basin.
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| Sun dog |
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| Deep Creek basin |
The one-half mile trail from the parking area to the dome is wide and paved. The elevation at the parking area is about 6300 feet and it is 6643 at the dome. The path averages a grade of over 12% and is apparently more challenging that it might first seem as numerous people were taking advantage of several benches along the way. If you have any doubt that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is truly a national park, I offered to take a snapshot of a family on the way up the trail and found they were visiting from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. While taking pictures of the setting sun from the tower and ramp, I chatted with a couple from New Hampshire.
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| Ice on the tower ramp |
The spruce-fir forest on Clingmans Dome is a relic of the last ice age. While the forest has been protected from logging since the 1930s and air pollution has been drastically reduced in the past forty years, the Fraser firs in the forest have been decimated by the balsam woolly adelgid during recent decades. Numerous snags dot the landscape as shown below.
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| Looking east toward Mount LeConte and Newfound Gap |
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| Looking north toward Pigeon Forge |
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| Looking west toward Mt Buckley |
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| Looking south toward Forney Ridge |
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| Looking down from the tower |
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| Sun emerges below the clouds |
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| Purple mountain majesty |
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| Seemingly endless ranks of ridges |
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| Going... |
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| Gone! Another day is done |
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