Tremont - June 2017

During a visit to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, a friend and I visited the Tremont area.  This area of the park has a good size stream following the road in.  In good lighting and water flow conditions, this area has numerous photo opportunities for various size cascades.  But water levels need to be right.  During a visit in mid-April the water flow was much too high since the region had a lot of rainfall.  Now, with lower rain levels the flow was much slower and less than optimum for good photographs.

But there was one location that was better than most, likely given the narrower channel in the stream.  The big plus here is that the stream falls over a large rounded rock outcropping, which I think is pretty nice.  To find this spot, take the road into the Tremont area nearly all the way to the end.  About 1/2 mile or less before you hit the end, you'll see a nice curve in the stream.  This rounded rock will be a bit right of center as you look down into this curve.  I shot this from atop a large boulder in the stream.  To get to the stream requires a scramble down the hill but farther to right side you can find somewhat of an easier path down to the stream.  If the water is flowing like is shown here, do not attempt to get into the water for a better composition.  You could easily slip and get injured.

But visit the Tremont area of the park.  It is usually not very busy, has lots of room to park, and in the right conditions offers hours of photography fun.