The Cherokee people called it Shacomage, or Place of Blue Smoke, for the bluish mist which clings to the mountainside and fills the valleys of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The most visited of the country’s national parks also has some of the world’s oldest mountains, more than 300 million years by some counts.

In the crags and hidden crooks of the Smokies lies one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. Never-been-logged old-growth forests protect more than 4,000 species of plans, 65 mammals and 230 types of birds. Hundreds of footpaths offer the best way to see the park’s attractions: Cades Cove with its preserved historic buildings and glimpses into old-time southern Appalachia, rushing waterfalls, expansive heath meadows called “balds.”

In anytime of year the wild landscape, rich with traces of its human past, is a recreationalists dream. Spring, when wildflowers and migrating birds abound, and autumn, with its pageantry of colors, are the most bucolic times to visit.

For more information go to: www.tnvacation.com or www.nps.gov/grsm.