The Smokies

The Great Smoky Mountains range rises along the Tennessee–North Carolina border. Commonly shortened to the Smokies, they are the Blue Ridge subrange of the Appalachian Mountains.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park protects the range. Established in 1934, it’s the most visited National Park in the United States with over 11 million visitors annually.

By USGS, SVG version by Jo - JPG version below; originally from http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/nyc/images/fig51.jpg (see also http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/nyc/common/captions.htm), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6304225

The terms Smokies and Blue Ridge conger images of hazy blue/gray ridges receding into the distance. The names come from the natural blue/gray haze created by volatile organic compounds (VOCs) “exhaled” by vegetation.

A familiar VOC is the scent of a pine tree. The Cherokee tribe originally called the area Shaconage, meaning “place of the blue smoke.”

Classic blue/gray haze over the Smokies from Adobe Stock Images

The Other Kind of Haze

Fog is quite common in the Smokies. Foggy forests and valleys embellish the already stunning natural beauty of the area. Foggy mornings captivate visitors, creating a fairytale-like realm invoking a sense of awe, wonder, and serenity.

Fog and clouds are similar. Both are composed of water vapor particles. But why do these clouds dwell so close to the ground? And why do they occur often in certain places and not in others?

The Smokies supply the required three ingredients: humidity, VOCs (which provide microscopic surfaces for condensation), and cool, fall evenings. Radiation fog, the most common type of fog, forms near the ground overnight as temperatures cool. The fog rises as air continues cooling it, forming higher and thicker layers. Eventually, it “burns off” after sunrise when temperatures warm.

Clear skies allow for more cooling of the surface at night. Clouds trap surface heat, inhibiting fog formation.

The Shot

Normally, “severely clear” blue skies aren’t conducive to landscape photography. But if you want ground fog, it’s just what the photographer needs.

Four of the five days I recently spent in the Smokies featured severely clear skies. And since it was humid with cool, clear nights, we had wonderful fog in the valleys on three mornings.

I photographed this scene on the third morning. Fog blanketed the valleys, leaving three layers of tree lines visible.

The fairytale-like scene captivated me, evoking the same feelings of awe, wonder, and serenity that visitors to Great Smoky Mountains National Park often describe.

Thanks for looking,

Chuck Derus