If you look at “official” maps of the area known as Appalachia (the territory surrounding the Appalachian Mountains), you’ll notice that the area delineated stops just east of Cincinnati. In fact the terminus falls in the next county to the east — Clermont County, at a point almost exactly on the outer edge of the I-275 beltway in Union Township.
But that’s not an exclusive thing. In fact, there are thousands of local residents who spring from Appalachian roots. Folk who came north from Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, to work in the factories. The largest cohort having gone to Detroit to work in the car factories. And trips southward to the family origin are referred to as trips “down home.”
And the trip Toni and I took the weekend of the 24th-26th is often referred to as “going down to the mountains.” Not exclusively, mind you, to the Smokies. The phrase can also refer to the Cumberland Mountains, Lake Cumberland, and the Cumberland Gap — which is the route by which the earliest English settlers came over the mountains. We, however, had out own particular destination in mind: Gatlinburg. We’d been there twice before, the last time in the early ’90s and, the first time, in 1983 had fallen in love with the Great Smokey Mountains National Park — specifically, Cade’s Cove, a pleasant valley surrounded by mountains at the south end of the park.
Cades Cove reminds me of the enchanted place in Pooh — a place at the top of the forest where the trees seem uncountable and the world feels hushed with meaning. That has lived in my mind for most of my life, and the Cove seems to touch the same nerve. These pictures are different from my other work because I was photographing not just what was in front of me, but the feeling the place left behind: stillness, wonder, and a sense of being held by the land.
Click on any image to see full-size.