GSMNP Celebrates Fall Harvest with Annual Mountain Life Festival in the Smokies

Every year at mid September the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) hosts the annual Mountain Life Festival at the Mountain Farm Museum adjacent to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center near Cherokee North Carolina This year this popular program will be taking place on Saturday, September 19th, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

This Mountain Life Festival helps preserve the legacy of Appalachian folkways and is meant to be a tribute to the people of European heritage who moved after their land was purchased in order to create the Great Smoky Mountains national park. The event is suitable for all ages and the activities are free.

Besides there being artifacts and historic photographs from the national park’s collection on display, this living history event will include demonstrations on old fashioned life skills such as blacksmithing, lye soap making, food preservation, hearth cooking, apple butter making, and chair bottoming. There will be a music jam session too from 1:00 to 3:00 pm.

One of the highlights of the Mountain Life Festival has been taking place for more than 30 years. The sorghum syrup demonstration, shows how with the use of a horse powered cane mill and a wood-fired cooker syrup is made much the same way it was produced a hundred or more years ago.

For the first time ever the Great Smoky Mountains Association (GSMA) which helps support the park is launching the new Mountain Farm Museum audio tour with free handsets available to visitors and members. There audio tour devices will be distributed for use on a first come first serve basis.

The location where the event take place right of Newfound Gap Road US411 has pretty vistas, a small working farm area with numerous historical structures and a hiking trail along the river which si one of the few places in the GSMNP where you can hike with your dog.

The farm area also contains one of the satellite herds of North American Elk in the Smokies introduced into the area in 2001. Since this is Rut season, male elk are especially active and aggressive so you must keep your distance from them for their safety as well as your own.

Cades Cove white tail bucks rutting but still low key

It's easy to find deer in Cades Cove - they are all over the place especially at sunrise and sunset. Doe are in groups all over the place but the bucks are with groups of does or solitary now that the rut has started.

While I have only caught far away fast glimpses of male deer sparring with one another, this sight will be more common and easier to find as the rut goes on and becomes more intense.

During the rut male white tail deer herd harems of does for future mating and fight off other bucks - usually without any injury other than their pride.

Deer can be more aggressive so it's a good idea to keep your distance from the deer even though they appear to be very docile. A white tail deer's best weapon is its hooves not it antlers!

Cades Cove Deer are starting to rut in the GSMNP

It's that time of the year again for the male deer in the Great Smoky Mountains national park to rut and Cades Cove is the place to see them.

Most of the time when you drive around or hike in Cades Cove you can see a few bucks (male deer) carousing around with each other in the company of many Doe (female deer).

Now during rut the males are collecting their harems and sparring with each other which will increase in activity over the next few weeks.

Deer can be dangerous animals if provoked and during the rut male deer are far more aggressive. Contrary to popular belief it is the deer's hoofs that are more dangerous that there antlers.

This is a great time to watch the deer in the GSMNP but bring along binoculars or use a telephoto lens and keep your distance for the deer's safety, your safety and to observe national park regulation in keeping 50 yards away from wildlife.