Feb 25 Cades Cove Hikes

 

It is a nice day and Cades Cove is always a popular place, so our plan is to drive the 11 mile loop and do short walks off the beaten path, so to speak. This spot is quite scenic, a few large trees in the middle of a pasture, with Rich Mountain in the background. If you walk up to this spot, you'll see it is a cemetery.

Unmarked stones have been getting pushed around by the tree roots for years. This is the Ike Lequire Cemetery. There are 16 unmarked graves. 

Now we are at the Lawson Cemetery, hidden on a wooden knoll near the Dan Lawson homesite. It has 25 graves. Dan and his wife are buried here. This is the famous cemetery which never became part of the park property since it was titled to "God Almighty". 

As you leave the Cable Mill Visitor Center continuing to drive around the loop, this pond is always visible in the forest on the left. Finally, I made the short walk to it. There were 3 men wading in it, engrossed in some aquatic study.   

Above are 3 large Dogwood trees alongside the Cable Cemetery. We walked back in the wood here and saw several deer. They didn't mind our presence a bit.

Just opposite the Missionary Baptist Church, is this stone circle. No one knows what the purpose of this was. It is associated with a former CCC camp. It could have been a flower bed, fountain or flagpole base. It had become obscured with vegetation over the years. The Cades Cove Preservation Society had a workday dedicated to reviving it and intriguing people like me with it.  

On the path to Gregory Cave, we passed an old homesite and saw this massive Cypress tree. There were a number of  them nearby too.

I have always thought this is the entrance to Gregory Cave, but I'm not certain. It was once a commercially operated show cave by the Gregory family. The nearby Missionary Baptist Church held some services in the main room back in 1954. It was prepared as a bomb shelter with 1000 person capacity. There are some rotting picnic tables nearby which were used by the NPS for group presentations. It looks like you could slither in there but not today. 

The sinks