Spring in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park means wildflowers to many people and I decided to join them this week end. The plan was to camp at the Cosby campground and visit 2 waterfalls in the park I hadn't seen - Fern Branch and Grotto Falls. I had also heard and read a lot about the impressive wildflower display along the Porters Creek Trail which happens to be the trail Fern Branch Falls is on. The Cosby section of the Smokies is about an hour from my house. I got the the campground about 7:30am on Friday, secured a site, then drove 30 minutes to the Porter's Creek trail head.

Harry was meeting me at the campground later in the day and we were going to do this trail first thing Saturday morning, but I wanted to head over alone today to check out the wildflower situation in hopes of saving time tomorrow. The parking area for this trail isn't that big and was over half full by the time I got there. This shot is from about mid day on up a part of the trail that was lined with Fringed Phacelia.