Last week we had a bit of excitement here in East Tennessee; it snowed!  Well, not so much here in the valley, but the mountains got a pretty good amount.  I heard varying numbers, but popular hiking destination Mt. LeConte got somewhere between 16 and 22 inches.  Pretty impressive for November 1st!

   With snow and colorful leaves at play, I just had to get out and do some shooting.  I tried to run up Foothills Parkway, but by the time I found time to get out, they had closed it already due to poor condiitons.  Holly and I drove around and eventually found ourselves going out Montvale Road to the Top of the World community.  I'd been wanting to get up there anyway to take pictures of the colors, so this was a double treat.  There looked to be around 3 or 4 inches worth of snow hanging around, more in places.  It was beautiful!

  I was reminded of a similar event when I was younger.  Back when I was a freshman in highschool it snowed on Halloween Day.  Some friends and I rode up Foothills Parkway then, and I specificaly remember thinking that it looked like Fruitloops; all the colorful leaves had "icing".

  If you'd like to see some more images from the November 1st snow, check out my friend Ryan Yoder's website.  He and a couple of other guys slept in their cars overnight at the Cades Cove parking lot, hoping to get snowed in and have the Cove all to themselves… it worked out as they'd hoped.  See his images here.

–Dan Thompson