Off the Beaten Path in the Smokies: White Oaks Sinks

Large-flowered Trillium – Trillium grandiflorum

White Oaks Sinks is the Great Smoky Mountain National Park is my absolute favorite place for spring wildflowers. You won't find White Oaks Sinks on regular maps, but it's gaining popularity because of people like me who can't keep such a beautiful place to themselves and post all over Facebook and the blogosphere. How obnoxious!

So how do you get to this magical place? From the Townsend Wye, turn right toward Cades Cove. Just past the tunnel you'll see a parking lot for the Schoolhouse Gap Trail (the sign above marks the trail). Take the trail for a little over a mile, and you'll see a narrow but obvious trail on your left that goes downhill a bit. (This isn't the Turkeypen Ridge Trail that you'll pass, by the way. This trail is a little ways past Turkeypen, and not marked.) Take this trail for another mile or so, and you'll find yourself descending into White Oaks Sinks. If you go to the right, you'll eventually come to Rainbow Falls Cave. If you go more straight-ish, you'll come to a cave. Either way, be sure to traverse the whole of the Sinks. It's so well worth it. You can also take the trail behind the cave (to the right of it) and you'll see a lot more wildflowers and come to another cave. Take a look around here: the wildflowers are crazy here!

This year the wildflowers are early in the Smokies. We took this hike on April 1. Last year we went on April 10, and it was gorgeous as well. (We've also done this trail in July, when the whole Sinks is covered in waist-high grass or something. It's hot and not very exciting in the summer there, but at least the Blow Hole cave feels like air-conditioning!) So plan your hike for sometime in the first 10 days of April.

And now, enough talking. Enjoy our hike, and put it on your hiking agenda for next spring!

Blue Phlox – Phlox divaricata

Wild Columbine – Aquilegia canadensis

cute little fiddleheads

Wild geranium

Little Brown Jug – Hexastylis arifolia

Showy Orchis – Galearis spectabilis

Shooting Star – Dodecatheon meadia

Woodland Stonecrop – Sedum ternatum

some kind of ragwort

Yellow Trillium – Trillium luteum

List of wildflowers spotted:
Yellow Trillium – Trillium luteum
Catesby’s Trillium – Trillium catesbaei
Large-flowered Trillium – Trillium grandiflorum
Wild Columbine – Aquilegia canadensis
Shooting Star – Dodecatheon meadia
Blue Phlox – Phlox divaricata
Showy Orchis – Galearis spectabilis
Foamflower – Tiarella cordifolia
Bishop’s Cap – Mitella diphylla
Woodland Stonecrop – Sedum ternatum
Rue Anemone – Thalictrum thalictroides
Long-spurred Violet – Viola rostrata
Wild Ginger – Asarum canadense
Little Brown Jug – Hexastylis arifolia
Blue Cohosh – Caulophyllum thalictroides
Mayapple – Podophyllum peltatum
Spring Beauty – Claytonia virgina
Carolina Vetch – Vicia caroliniana
Pussytoes – Antennaria solitaria

Linked up with Outdoor Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday, Seven Clown Circus