If I had to pick one national park as a favorite, I’d pick the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There wouldn’t be any hesitation or delay in my answer. It is by far my favorite park. If I had to pick one season, I’d pick Fall in the Smoky Mountains (or spring). I really couldn’t pick between the two.

“I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” – John Muir

On my first visit to the park, I hiked the Appalachian Trail from the north end of the park to the south end as part of my thru-hike of the entire trail. That was in 1996. For years, I returned each spring to backpack in the mountains hiking 100s of miles and sleeping under the nylon canopy of a tent, under a tarp or in a trail shelter. I still have more of the Smokies to see.

After moving to Grand Marais, I stopped going back until 2013. Once there again I kicked myself for missing all the years that I could have been gone. Since then I’ve offered Fall in the Smoky Mountains Photo Workshops and Spring in the Smoky Mountain Photo Workshops. There’s something magical there in fall. The park contains multiple biomes ranging from boreal forests in the highlands to southern cove hardwood forests in the valleys. It is one of the most biologically diverse locations on the planet. And during the fall in the smoky mountains, which often lasts over a month, you can see the diversity in which trees have changed and which are green. On a great year, there isn’t a better place to see the fall color.

There are trees here that stood before our forefathers ever came to this continent; there are brooks that still run as clear as on the day the first pioneer cupped his hand and drank from them. In this Park, we shall conserve these trees, the pine, the red-bud, the dogwood, the azalea, the rhododendron, the trout and the thrush for the happiness of the American people.

The old frontier, that put the hard fibre in the American spirit and the long muscles on the American back, lives and will live in these untamed mountains to give to the future generations a sense of the land from which their forefathers hewed their homes.

That hewing was hard. The dangers were many. The rifle could never be far from the axe. The pioneers stood on their own feet, they shot their own game and they fought off their own enemies. In time of accident or misfortune they helped each other…

-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Address at Dedication of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
September 2, 1940

While it is America’s busiest national park, even in the busiest season of the year, you can still find solitude to wonder at these mountains. They are open, inviting and welcome us in. It’s a park you must visit.