This winter, my boyfriend and I decided to make a big move. His work was taking him to Tennessee almost every week, so after over a decade each in Charlotte, NC, we decided to head west. Three hours west, specifically, to a tiny town called Cosby, TN.

We didn’t choose Cosby specifically. The property we fell in love with happened to be here, in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. We’re just a quick and curvy drive the northern or “quiet side” of the country’s most visited National Park.

Surprisingly, it is incredibly peaceful; though we’ve been stuck in heavy traffic and bear jams in Cades Cove and Gatlinburg, many areas of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) aren’t visited much at all. Even on the busiest summer weekend, the throngs of visitors all but disappear as soon as you step into the woods.

We’re seeing those less-crowded parts of the park for one main reason: others’ blog posts helped me plan the kind of hikes my boyfriend would enjoy. I’ve been a hiking fanatic for years, but he wasn’t as excited about long walks in the mountains…until we moved here. He agreed to try a few trails, and somewhere around the afternoon that we were playing at a waterfall and had to step aside to let the Mt. LeConte supply llamas blow through, he was hooked. We settled on a goal to hike all 900 miles of the GSMNP together, and as I write, we’ve covered over 130 unique miles of GSMNP trails in under 6 months. We’ve hiked 230 miles in toto so far since April, including other nearby areas like the Pisgah National Forest.

We’ve seen a bear cub slide 50′ down a tree trunk and vanish into the woods, picked wild blueberries, lost gear while fleeing yellow jackets, followed in the

hoofprints of migrating elk, been caught in unforecast downpours that turned trails into rivers, enjoyed a sunset at Clingmans Dome, tapdanced around brave juncos trying to distract us from their nests, stumbled upon some of the largest hardwoods on the continent, hunted firefly displays (unsuccessfully), dodged face-high nettle, spooked salamanders off their mossy perches, photographed about 4 dozen wildflowers, learned about water purification from Appalachian Trail thru-hikers and gotten extremely startled by turkeys – they’re so flappy! We’ve hiked over 17 miles in a day next to 100-year-old rock walls and historical homesites marked only by a few piles of stones and the perennials planted there by the people who owned this land before we all did.

These experiences, and many more, leave us feeling happy and accomplished. The more people who experience this kind of contentment in the woods, the better off our world is (and the more who work to conserve natural spaces). So it’s time to pay it forward and pick this blog back up. Hopefully the posts will help others meet their own mountain goals and fall deeper in love with the precious areas that humans have decided to protect for each other. Happy hiking!

– Beth