Nature

Are you a conservation-minded visitor? See the Smoky Mountain Convention and Visitors Bureau's special green website for your low impact vacation: http://www.lowimpactvacation.com/ and click here for visitors' eco-tips!

Visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park?  You can help out by reducing your carbon footprint!
Click here to find out more.

Natural features of the area:

(Please use inside scroll bar on the right to view more information below.)

Townsend is part of Tuckaleechee Cove, a beautiful valley at the border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  The name comes from the Cherokee and means "peaceful, green place".  Tuckaleechee Cove, like Cades Cove and Wear Cove, was formed ages ago when mountain building forces pushed older layers of rock (slate and sandstone) on top of younger layers of rock (limestone).  As time passed, weathering and erosion opened up the coves or "windows".  So, geologic processes produced the lovely mountain valleys we see today and over time yielded productive lands for wildlife and for human settlement.  To see the results of water flowing and dripping underground, visit Tuckaleechee Caverns.

Flowing out of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with headwaters above Elkmont, is the Little River.  Since the forests of the Smokies are a wonderful watershed, the stream is clean, cold, and clear.  This means great opportunities for fishing, tubing, kayaking, and canoeing-or just splashing in the river!

The Townsend area has lots of green space, where people can stroll or bicycle along the pathways and enjoy views of wooded hills, fields and well-kept homes and gardens on the side roads. A handi-capped accessible picnic area is located by the Little River at the western end of bicycle path.

With a combination of open fields, forests, farms, and streams, Townsend, Tuckaleechee Cove, and surrounding areas are wonderful for bird watching.  Ducks, geese, and herons swim and wade in the Little River, colorful warblers and other songbirds migrate through the tress in spring and fall, and the Foothills Parkway is a hawk migration route.  Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is another excellent birding hotspot. 

Great Blue Heron photo by Charles Wilder, Discover Life in America.  All applicable copyright laws apply.

Wildflowers abound in the Smokies!  From late February through the end of October, something is blooming--delicate blossoms of the forest floor, spectacular displays of azaleas, mountain laurel, and rhododendron, and the grand finale of the yellow, red, and purple blossoms of autumn.  Download a "Blooming Calendar" to give you a general idea of flowering times:
Blooming Calendar_2

To find out more about wildflowers, shrubs, and trees, visit the University of Tennessee Herbarium website: http://tenn.bio.utk.edu/vascular/vascular.html or the biodiversity investigations of Discover Life in America: http://www.dlia.org/atbi/species/Plantae/Magnoliophyta/index.shtml

Click here for Seasonal Information to help you plan your visit to the Smokies.

Learn how scientists are surveying all living things in the Smokies with the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, coordinated by Discover Life in America.

Find out about how landowners in East Tennessee are voluntarily protecting their forests, streams, farms, and wildlife habitat for future enjoyment:  Foothills Land Conservancy.