Oconaluftee Visitor Center Hosts Holiday Homecoming

Great Smoky Mountains National Park hosts the Oconaluftee Visitor Center Holiday Homecoming on Saturday, December 16, 2017. Park staff and volunteers will provide hands-on traditional crafts and activities from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Children and adults will have the opportunity to learn about and experience some of the traditions surrounding an Appalachian Christmas.

The visitor center will be decorated for the holiday season including an exhibit on Christmas in the mountains. Hot apple cider and cookies will be served on the porch with a fire in the fireplace. In addition, the park will host the monthly acoustic old time jam session from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

“Musical expression was and still is often a part of daily life in the southern mountains, and mountain music is strongly tied to the Smokies history and culture,” said Lynda Doucette, Supervisory Park Ranger, Oconaluftee Visitor Center. “This month our music jam will focus on traditional holiday tunes. We would like to invite musicians to play and our visitors to join us in singing traditional Christmas carols and holiday songs as was done in old days.”

The Oconaluftee Visitor Center is located on Newfound Gap Road (U.S. Highway 441), two miles north of Cherokee, N.C. For more

information call the visitor center at 828-497-1904. All activities are free and open to the public. Generous support of this event is provided by the Great Smoky Mountains Association.

The Oconaluftee Visitor Center is a must stop for any visit to the Great Smoky Mountains! Entrance to the Center is free and it is open to

the public every day except Christmas day. The Visitor Center has plenty of parking for cars, RVs and motor coaches. Public restrooms and vending machines are available to the left of the Center’s main entrance. You will find everything you need to experience the Park at your own pace.

The Visitor Center offers a unique view into the area’s past at the Mountain Farm Museum – a collection of historic log buildings from the late 19th century that were relocated here from all over North Carolina in the 1950’s.

41st Christmas Past Celebration

Sugarlands Visitors Center will host the Great Smoky Mountains 41st annual Festival of Christmas Past celebration. The event is scheduled for Saturday, December 9th from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Sugarlands Visitor Center a half mile south of the Gatlinburg national park entrance. This event is cosponsored by the Great Smoky Mountains Associationand is free to the public.

The festival will include old-time mountain music, traditional shape note singing, mountain craft demonstrations, and a living history walk. Visitors can also experience these traditions through hands-on activities such as make-and-take craft stations. Hot apple cider will also be served throughout the day.

“Around Christmas time, people gathered in churches, homes, and schools where they celebrated the holiday through music, storytelling, and crafts,” said North District Resource Education Supervisor Stephanie Sutton. “The Festival of Christmas Past allows us to pause and remember some of these traditions.”

Make sure and add all the fun scheduled to your calendar so you don’t miss a single minute!

9:30 Shape Note Singing
11:00 Old-time mountain music with Lost Mill
11:00 Memories Walk
12:00 Old-time mountain music with Boogertown Gap
1:00 Smoky Mountain Historical Society
2:00 Appalachian Christmas Music and Storytelling – NPS Staff

The popular Christmas Memories Walk will be held at 11:00 a.m. Costumed interpreters will lead a short walk from the visitor center and talk about life in the mountains during the holidays. Through this living history program, visitors will experience the spirit of the season in the mountains during the early days.

The Sugarlands Visitor Center is a must stop for any visit to the Great Smoky Mountains! Entrance to the center is free and it is open to the public every day except Christmas day. The Visitor Center has plenty of parking for cars, RVs, and motor coaches. Public restrooms and vending machines are available to the left of the center’s main entrance. Here you will find everything you need to experience the park at your own pace.

Biltmore Christmas Celebration

Biltmore Christmas Celebration is a must for young and old! It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Biltmore House which rises in the early morning mountain mist like a fairy-tale castle. There is really no bad season to visit Biltmore, the largest private home in America, located in Asheville, N.C., but possibly the most amazing time (and our personal favorite) is for Candle Christmas Evenings held between November 3 and January 6, and is the only time of the year that the mansion opens at night. Each year Biltmore decorators select a different theme, and this year’s “Gilded Age Christmas” takes cues from stories told and retold about early Vanderbilt family celebrations. A towering 55-foot Norway spruce, ablaze with 45,000 twinkling lights, and hand-lit luminaries welcome guests as they arrive along a long circular driveway that surrounds the front lawn. Firelight reflects on thousands of ornaments that decorate dozens of Christmas trees located throughout the mansion’s grand rooms, but the most amazing is a 34-ft. Frazier Fir, ornamented from top to bottom and surrounded by elaborately wrapped gifts, that forms the focal point in the immense Banquet Hall. Miles of garlands festoon doorways, mantels, chandeliers and hallways and live performances of Christmas music begin at the entrance and continue throughout the house
The magnificent French renaissance-style structure, which encompasses 80,000 square feet, was commissioned by George W. Vanderbilt in 1889 and christened with a spectacular Christmas Eve party held for his friends in 1895. Vanderbilt, who fell in love with the western North Carolina area after visiting several times with his mother, purchased 125,000 acres (land that included more than 50 farms and at least five cemeteries) in order to build his incredible Blue Ridge Mountain estate.

Evening tours range from $70 to $85 for adults as compared to daytime tours priced from $50 to $60. Whichever you choose there are plenty of activities to justify the cost. Daily seminars include decorating with holiday wreaths and creating holiday tablescapes are available and the estate’s conservatory hosts an annual poinsettia and tropical plant display. Santa Claus welcomes the younger set in Antler Hill Village (home to several eateries, the Biltmore Winery and gift shops) each weekend through Dec. 20. Those who prefer the natural quiet and serene sense of peace the holiday season confers may opt to drive through the now 8,000 acre estate and walk through the lavish 75 acres of Biltmore gardens, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, of New York’s Central Park fame. A variety of tours and package deals are available by visiting www.biltmore.com. Where you can also book al tour tickets online.

Raise a glass; find your pint and support the Blue Ridge Parkway 2018.

Raise a glass; find your pint and support the Blue Ridge Parkway. For the second time in as many years breweries from Asheville to the High Country and Virginia raised funds for the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway and its “Find Your Pint” event. Each brewery, some of which  created special beers to honor the highway and others, who highlighted flagship brews, donated a portion of sales to support the non-profit Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The Blue Ridge Parkway is considered the “sister” national park to the Great Smoky Mountains and a portion of the participating breweries are found in the HeySmokies region. More than 15 million people visited the 469-mile scenic highway last year; a number that exceeds the

combined visitation of Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon National Parks. A Passport Program encourages beer fans to collect Parkway Beer Passport stickers and booklets available at participating breweries. Be sure and set your calendar for 2018 and the 3rd annual find your pint tour!

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Bridges the Foothills Parkway Missing Link

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Bridges the Foothills Parkway Missing Link. The long awaited bridge completion will herald the opening of a beautiful new section of the Foothills Parkway.

 National Park officials hosted a celebration for the bridging of the ‘Missing Link’ which completed a seven-year project to design and build five bridges at a cost of $48.5 million. This marks the first time that vehicles can travel the entire 16-mile section of the Foothills Parkway extending from Walland to Wears Valley, TN.

“We are excited to mark another milestone in the completion of this spectacular section of the Foothills Parkway,” said Acting Superintendent Clay Jordan. “With the missing link now bridged, we look forward to finishing the final paving and then opening the roadway to the public by the end of next year.”

Construction of this 16-mile section began in 1966. Most of the roadway was completed by 1989 when the project came to a halt due to slope failures and erosion during construction of the last 1.65 miles – known as the ‘Missing Link.’ The engineering solution included the construction of nine bridges to connect the roadway in an environmentally sustainable manner. These last five bridges mark an important milestone by completing the ‘Missing Link.’ Since 1966, $178 million has been invested in this 16-mile section of the Foothills Parkway spanning parts of Blount and Sevier Counties.

The HeySmokies expeditionary team has had the pleasure of touring the incomplete sections of the Parkway in recent years and we are excited to explore it completely when opened. In the meantime we can still enjoy the two sections that are open: Foothills Parkway East and Foothills Parkway West! Join us in 2018 for an auto tour that is destined to be absolutely incredible! Don’t forget to gas up!