My quest to visit all 59 US National Parks continues with a journey to the wild, stormy, and charred landscape of the Great Smoky Mountains in Eastern Tennessee.

Although not remote in any sense of the word, Great Smoky Mountains National Park offers plenty of escape and solitude for those who go looking for it.

Just a short 3-hour drive from Nashville, “The Smokies” as they are known locally, are a range of mountains in Eastern Tennessee encompassed by a vast wilderness of vibrant green trees, beautiful blue rivers, and massive roaring waterfalls.

Visiting during the winter to avoid the large crowds (this is far and away the most popular Park in the System- attracting over 10 million visitors per year), I was immediately confronted with two challenges: fierce thunderstorms in the mountains and the devastation caused by recent forest fires, which tore through both the Park and the surrounding down of Gatlinburg.

After an attempt at reaching some of the higher alpine viewpoints resulted in being completely surrounded by fog and pelted from head to toe with rain, I decided to descend to lower elevation where bizarrely it was still sunny and calm.

Driving along the rushing rivers and creeks that cut through the lower woods, I was immediately stunned by just how gorgeous and peaceful this place is. While the Eastern US is not known for vast swaths of vibrant wilderness, the Smokies defy this stereotype, sprouting up like an Oasis in the middle the flat rolling plains of Tennessee.

Here are my photos from this stunning area: