The Blue Ridge Parkway is the longest linear park in the United States. The parkway stretches for 469 miles from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Cherokee, North Carolina to Skyline Drive in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park. The part of the parkway that I have explored is the section from Pisgah National Forest at mile marker 410 to the Great Smoky Mountains at mile marker 469. The pictures to follow will be from this area.

In 2017 I took a 3 week vacation to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  The first week of the trip I stayed near the town of Sylva and explored the Blue Ridge Parkway during the first week of the trip.  The image above was taken from an overlook along the parkway during the first few days that I was there.

This was my very first attempt at photographing the Milky Way. This location was at an overlook with a small parking area. I moved my truck so that the headlights would shine on the trees indirectly and then took this shot. Though I have some silhouette shots taken of this scene, I always have preferred to see some detail in the subjects that I am shooting. Subjects lit up at night I think is much more pleasing to the eye then just blacked out shapes.

This shot was just an experiment to see how well the camera would capture the night sky. I am not a big fan of silhouettes, but I thought this one worked well.

Not far from the Blue Ridge Parkway is Looking Glass Falls on Route 276. I walked down the creek a little to get this shot.

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