Bears, bagpipes and forgotten tent poles
Travelling around North Carolina and Tennessee
It was Easter Sunday and I’d spent the morning running up Mount LeConte, in the Great Smoky Mountains. The Smokies form part of the Appalachians - a band of hills that extend 2,000 miles from Canada to Alabama - and they’re where Dolly Parton grew up. The number of times I played her song Tennessee Mountain Home while driving around the national park’s winding roads during those ten days alone make it a strong contender for this year’s Spotify Wrapped, despite the fact we’re not even a third of the way through 2024 yet.
I cobbled together a loose itinerary for my American adventure approximately 48 hours before boarding the plane, having arranged to fly out early ahead of some work over there. My only real criteria was that I wanted to see some mountains and the Great Smokies seemed the best ones near where I was working in North Carolina.
By Easter, I was a few days into the trip. I’d already hiked up Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the App…