Sha-Kon-O-Hey

I was admiring the eponymous 'smoke' of the Smoky Mountains on a recent trip:

Naively, I was trying to figure out why the clouds being caught on the mountains here were so different.   However, I was confusing cause and effect.  These are not clouds of vapor coming down form the sky but rather clouds of vapor being released into the sky!

Later, while hiking, we noticed that the ground beneath certain pine trees was wet and that their leaves were all wet (while the surrounding trees and ground were not so).

Those pine tree (trees in general I suppose) are exhaling.  Along with good old invisible oxygen, they are exuding those tree scents and all kinds of organic compounds (VOC's (Volatile Organic Compounds)).

So, what we are seeing is not some kind of weather phenomenon, but rather the forest exhaling.  The 'smoke' is literally the breath of the world made manifest before our eyes! Thank you trees for using the sunlight to break those carbons off your inhaled carbon dioxide and throwing all that oxygen back into the atmosphere for us animals to inhale in turn.

Mistaking the effect for the cause again, KR - c'mon, you should know better!

P.S. the 'blue' of these blue ridge mountains is also due to light scattering from small, released molecules just like the atmosphere itself scatters light off of its own nitrogen to be blue. (The 'Smokies' are a subset of the Blue Ridge Mountains)

P.P.S. Shaconage (pronounced Sha-Kon-O-Hey)is the OG Cherokee name for the mountains. Way cooler name imo.