Larry Griffin
lgriffin@thesmokymountaintimes.com
It isn’t every day people gather to stare at the sun, but that’s what a mix of tourists and Western North Carolina residents did at the Oconaluftee Visitors’ Center on Monday afternoon, April 8, for the solar eclipse.
Brandi Karst, part of a group who drove up from Sylva to see the eclipse, and said it was an “historic event.”
“It’s one of those things you only have a chance once in a while to see,” she said. “It was kind of a flash decision. I don’t think we’d planned to do this a few days ago.”
She said one of her other interests with the eclipse was to see “how the wildlife and insects reacted.”
“I want to see if there’s a response from wildlife, from insects, if there’s a lull in the sounds they make, if they get real quiet.”
Also among the group was Shane Davis and his children Gunnar and Josephine. Shane asked the kids what they thought was cool about the eclipse.
“The moon looks like Pac-Man,” Gunnar replied.
The day was somewhat overcast and sometimes, the eclipse was invisible behind the clouds. At the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, people stood up with eclipse glasses to their faces, often silent except to exchange numbers on totality and how much of the sun was being covered and whether they could see anything through the cloud-cover.
Park Service ranger Julie Flores said the crowd at Oconaluftee hadn’t been as big as she thought.
“It’s definitely not as busy,” she said. “Probably because of the weather. It’s not in totality as well – people flocked here in 2017. Maybe now it’s not as appealing.”
Despite that, the Visitor’s Center in downtown was completely out of eyeglasses by midmorning on Monday. None of the tourist shops by the railroad had them, either.
For about two hours on Monday afternoon everyone just watched as the sun was encroached upon by the moon – the sun’s bright orange glow gradually covered by a black circle.
The Park Service officials had a telescope at the ready so people could get a closer look. As the eclipse got closer to the most cover it would get this time, people began snapping pictures through the telescope lens.
Salisbury resident Shannon Ward attended with her daughter Glynis and their dog Paul. Shannon said a higher percentage of the sun that would be eclipsed in the Smokies, so they decided to make a day trip for the event.
“It was 80% in Salisbury, and like 88% here,” she said. “It just seemed like a nice day for a ride. It’s going to be another 20 years before it happens again, so it feels like a special thing to experience.”
Many of those in attendance were tourists, and many of them had just been vacationing when the eclipse happened.
“We were going to go to Ohio, but it didn’t work out,” said Haywood County resident Ines Klenke. “We heard this would have around 85% totality, so we thought we’d give it a whirl. We were scared we’d get logjammed in the park, so we decided to come here. We had a real hard time finding glasses. We were only an hour and fifteen minutes away – that was another reason to come here.”
“We’re visiting from Birmingham,” said another parkgoer, Matt Pasker, there with his wife Julia. “It was just a coincidence that this is happening today. We saw this set up over here. We just came here to hike, but we’re staying for the eclipse.”
Some people said they preferred being in the Smokies, even though the eclipse would’ve been viewable with 100% totality where they were coming from.
“I wanted to watch the eclipse,” said Kentucky resident Troy Guckiean, in attendance with his children. “We came from Kentucky, and we could’ve been at home and seen a total eclipse but being in the Smokies with 85% is better than 100% at home.”