Life in Full Color

• Apr. 13, 2008 - White Oak Sinks

Saturday we went on a Hike to White Oak Sinks off of School House Gap Trail. It was a great day for seeing wild flowers. Here are three from the Trillium family:

This is one of the pictures that Emily took. I can't find my Smoky Mountain Wild flower field guide that several of these flowers are in. I think this one has something in its name that means big. It is one of the bigger trillium in the park.

I think this is a catesby trillium. I like this one It's bloom comes from under the leaf unlike the other trilliums you will see in the park.

I always call this a yellow trillium, I don't have a book that includes this flower.

Blood root

Rue anemone

chickweed (growing among phlox)

A kind of woodsorrel? I have never seen this one before and was first drawn to the distinctive leaves when I stumbled upon one flower beginning to open.

Spring Beauty

A field of blue phlox. The whole area was just covered with these little blue flowers. The pictures don't capture the effect.

These are not in the books and seem to be rare. I believe I was told that its name is Star flower.

Don't they just look like they love each other? Or at least like each other? They were fighting just before this photo and yet I still got such a sweet picture of them together. They had a friend along that falls between Emily and Noah in age and they both enjoy Adam. As you know though three is a crowd and sometimes Noah loses out.

This is one of the first caves that we came to upon entering the sinks from above and I guess behind. I don't think I could ever take us the way our *guide* took us again. There are several caves in this area (the reason for the sinks :) This particular cave was the site of the stranded youth pastor and his little hiking group that was in the news a few weeks ago. I did notice (and point out to my son) that there was a sign right at the entrance that you could not enter without permission.

In the white oak sinks area there are several notes of interest. Up on a hill were these cogs. It is not known what they were used for... We also hiked up to a grave site, The only in the area because everyone was usually buried in Cades Cove. I keep saying we hiked up because that is where the home sites would be, up on the hill so that valuable flat land could be used in farming.

Here is a stick that Noah called his Chinese stick. We have been studying Ancient China and he thought that the little worm "tracks" looked like chinese writing. It was a huge stick and I wouldn't let him drag it around for fear of tripping up someone who wasn't used to having little boys around.

After we came down from the one grave site in white oak sinks I spotted two deer. There were only 5 of us out of the group that got to see the deer. Noah had to bury his snail that had died and was having a hard time dealing with the fact that I was not going to let him carry the sticky thing around anymore. So we had fallen a little behind during the process. When I spotted the deer the three others that were kinda lagging back with us decided to take pictures. I was amazed at how close we could get to the deer.

This is the deer that Noah sited. A friend was trying to convince him to find other treasures to show us because he was so good at looking around. She was trying to convince him to walk and to get over his dead snail. This was what he found. A log that looked like a deer eating.

This is a water fall that is there in the sinks. (I don't know why my camera isn't focusing sometimes) It tumbles down and back under itself and under ground. It connects somehow with the Tuckaleechee caverns.

Here is the bottom of the falls. The kids are getting reading to enter the hollowed out area behind the falls.

Noah who was still sticking with me pretty close saw an alligator in this log.

Here is a look back up to the opening. To the right you can see the falls splashing on the rocks.

Here is a picture of some of the group at the bottom of the falls. It was a slightly treacherous, very muddy trip to the bottom.

Here are two bats that weren't disturbed by our group. We did stir up a couple others that flew around and thrilled Noah while we were there.

This was a fun hike. I think we did more than the estimated 4 miles. Noah was a real trooper. Emily complained at the end. My feet were complaining at the end. Would I do the hike again. Yes, at the very least the shorter more direct route at least. The longer way again? Yes but with better shoes :) It was fun being with a group. So often the kids and I just go off on our own.