Blue Waters Mountain Lodge

You don’t have to be a Methuselah, though it helps, to recall some of the many callings that been lost to our new, fast paced world.  But here in the heart of the Smoky Mountains, it is just a little easier to imagine a time that consisted of hand cut nails, a...

Now comes the time to hang the kissing bough with its mistletoe from the ceiling of the living room.  Old timers say that if a girl with marrying on her mind wanted to be wed in the coming year she must be kissed under the mistletoe at Christmas time. In the day, many...

There is a sense of wilderness isolation here in our cove on this deep winter’s day.  All of yesterday is lost beneath the snow that fell during the night.  It has smoothed and gentled all the scars and blemishes of the cove, leaving an untouched world of purity and...

December in the hills is a sprig of berry bright holly, a spray of galax, and bouquet of mystic mistletoe.  It is the raucous cry and flashing wing of a bluejay in a naked woodland and the thunder of grouse exploding from the brush. It’s firelight and starlight.  It’s...

To the north loom the Snowbird Mountains, green wooded and thicketed with laurel and back of them nestles the valley of Cheoah, which is to say, “Otter Place”.  From here in the valley of Konehete – “the Long Place” – a winding dirt track climbs toward the sky to...

Out in the Country, where folks live close to the soil, November is a time to rest and be thankful. October has slipped away on feet of thistledown, and November now comes rustling down the mountain. The autumn color ebbs, and the season turns from gold to gray. And...

Hooper Bald - This mile-high peak in the Great Smokies in one of nature’s unsolved mysteries.  It is a botanical puzzle that has baffled the minds of scientists for centuries.  Trees refuse to grow on its summit, and no one really knows why.  This peculiarity,...

A tingle runs through the autumn air.  The sweet smoke from a wood fire comes down the breeze, and far away a dog barks.  It’s one of those days when the morning opens like an invitation.  The sun slips over the mountain laurel of the Snowbird Mountains, shooting long...

Mother Nature has taken her paint brush and quickly changed the season from summer to fall with the brilliant display of color we are beginning to enjoy.  With this cooler weather, we at Blue Waters Mountain Lodge begin to think about stews, chilis, soups and other...

The Smoky Mountains is one of the most diverse temperate rainforests in the world. The rich hardwood and evergreen canopies shelter a large population of migrating and resident birds, numerous mammals, and hundreds of rare plant and insect species. The true native...