My Favorite Biome: The Smoky Mountains

My favorite biome is the in the Smoky Mountains.  I'm not exactly sure what biome this would be, maybe mountain or Temperate Broadleaf Deciduous Forest.  But I love visiting this mountain range.  I try to make at least one trip yearly.  I have done some camping, rafting, backpacking, and mountain biking here.  The picture above is actually me standing on top of Upper Whitewater Falls in North Carolina, the highest water fall east of the Rockies.  Heres another picture from the front:

  I took these pictures while hiking the Foothills trail in the Carolinas.

One thing thats really cool, especially during this time of the year, is the turning of the colors in the leaves.  This is typical for a Temperate Broadleaf Deciduous Forest, or TBDF.  Also typical to this biome, are the layers that vegetation grows in depending on elevation.  At low elevations, there are towering trees, which turn into saplings, then shrubs, and then ground vegetation, such as mosses, as elevation increases.  Typical animals that inhabit this biome are: white tail deer, black bears, possums, racoons, grey squirrels, and chipmunks.

I plan on taking another trip to the same trail in the Carolinas this spring, so hopefully I'll have more photos to share later.

All info gathered at:
http://www.radford.edu/~swoodwar/CLASSES/GEOG235/biomes/tbdf/tbdf.html