Driving and hiking through the park this week was a real treat. The Rosebay Rhododendron seemed to be everywhere. Every bush seemed to be blooming. The GSMA is calling it a hundred year Super Bloom. I suspect it has something to do with the absence of the hemlock trees. Hemlocks are dying throughout the park and exposing the understory to lots more sunlight than it has ever seen. Hemlocks and rhododendron like similar terrain along creeks.
Cooper Road Trail is accessed in the Cades Cove loop. The trail is a driveable road. I walked an out and back route of 11.2 miles. Today, park service rangers were doing maintenance on the trail. They rode horses and three ATVs, a John Deere, Cub Cadet and a Kawasaki. If that didn't stir up the yellow jackets, the weed whackers surely did.
The Rosebay display was unparalleled. For much of the trail, I was creekside and in a sea of white snowball blossoms. The scene above was repeated many times, as far as you could see.
This trail was impacted by the tornado which ripped through this area a little over a year ago. Several other trails remained closed. What was once a forest scene, is now a open area of tangled wood and lots and lots of new ground vegetation. Keeping this new vegetation down is going to be a challenge.
This trail added 5.6 miles toward my S900 Challenge.
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