Smoky Mountain Hiking

A few days ago, I wrote about some of the alternate routes that are available to get to the Smokies. Many people, once they get there, find themselves stuck in traffic on the parkway in Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge, or somewhere in between. Once you become familiar with some of the backroads of the area, your trip will be much more relaxing knowing that you won’t be sitting in traffic for hours.

The more obvious shortcut is the Gatlinburg By-Pass. If you are coming from Pigeon Forge or Sevierville, this is a no-brainer if you want to get to the park without getting stuck in the ‘Burg. It is also a pretty good choice if you are staying near that end of Gatlinburg.

If you are shopping in Pigeon Forge near the Tanger Outlets or Belz, Teaster Lane is your new best friend. You can take it all the way to near Dollywood for a quick bypass of the traffic on the parkway.

If you are in Gatlinburg, try using River Road instead of the Parkway. You can also take Airport to Cherokee Orchard Road, then take the Baskins Creek Bypass near Johnson’s Inn for a quick route to 321.

If you are out near Greenbriar/Pittman and want to get over to Pigeon Forge, take Buckhorn Road near Battle’s to Upper Creek Road. This will bring you into Pigeon Forge near the entrance to Dollywood, where you can then connect to Teaster Lane for a quick route to the outlet malls.

So those are a few of the shortcuts I have used to get around the often congested roads of the towns around the Smoky Mountains. If you have any other tips, leave them in the comments.

If you have been to Gatlinburg in recent months, you may have noticed the sidwalks along the Parkway all torn up. That was part of a project to move the power lines underground, and it is now complete. I have always thought that the tangled mess of line running above the parkway distracted from the scenery, and this shoule be a big improvement.

After months of dealing with torn up walks and pavement, another phase of the undergrounding of utilities along the Parkway has been completed. And most people think it’s great.

Get more reactions from visitors and residents from The Mountain Press.

Under an experimental program that began in April, it is now legal to catch and keep brook trout in the Smokies.

Imperiled from Georgia to Maine by decades of pollution, poor land management and competition from nonnative brown and rainbow cousins, “brookies” are regaining a foothold in the country’s most visited national park on the Tennessee-North Carolina line.

Read more in this artcile at chron.com.

Millions of people each year travel to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to take in its natural beauty. A large majority of those people stay in either Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge. Most people will tell you to take I-40 to the Sevierville/Smoky Mountains exit. This puts you on Highway 66, which connects with Highway 441 in downtown Sevierville.

If you have ever taken this route on a holiday weekend or during the peak seasons, you know that traffic can be a mess, usually resulting in a 15-20 mile trip that takes 2 hours or more. There are lots of alternate routes you can take, and we usually make use of them to save time and to take in better scenery than that of the parkway in Pigeon Forge.

If you are coming from Birmingham, Atlanta, or anywhere south of Knoxville, take the Lenior City exit off of I-40. This will put you on Highway 321. After many years of construction, this road is 4 lane all the way to Maryville, save a few miles here and there. In Maryville, you will stay on 321, passing by the 200 year old Maryville College. My family takes this route and it is a sanity saver. We will often leave early enough to grab lunch to go at the Little River Grill in Townsend (home of the broasted chicken), and then head up to Cades Cove.
Follow 321 to Townsend, “the quiet side of the Smokies”. If your plans are to visit Gatlinburg, take the 30-mile scenic tour through the park. If you your destination is Pigeon Forge, follow 321 through Wears Valley, an equally scenic 2-lane road that runs the edge of the park boundary.

If you are arriving from locations north of Knoxville, there are several options availble to you. The quickest and most reliable will probably be to exit at Newport (ext 435). This will also drop you onto highway 321, which you can follow through Cosby and the Greenbriar area down to Gatlinburg. You can also try the Foothills Parkway, but this road can be closed during cold weather due to ice.
If you are coming from North/South Carolina or Atlanta, follow highway 23/441 through Cherokee, NC. This will take you into the park and across Newfound Gap, which is a great place to stop and stretch your legs. This road may be closed if there is sufficient ice near the top.

Well, that should help you find the quickest way to the Smokies. Look for our next article on getting around Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge off the Parkway.

If you know of any other great tips, leave a comment.

Gatlinburg will once again ring in America’s Indenpendence Day with the nations first 4th of July parade. Now in it’s 31st year, this parade will make its way down the parkway to the cheers of up to 100,000 visitors.

As soon as the street is closed, the parade route will come alive with pre-parade entertainers that will begin the excitement of what is to follow. Giant helium balloons will soar through the skyline of downtown Gatlinburg, from red, white, and blue Stars to Alphonso the dragon, Humpty Dumpty, and a giant patriotic Eagle and All-Star Train. More than 100 volunteers will be signed on to help the balloons navigate the streets of Gatlinburg, with more than 100 entries of all types scheduled to appear. National entries such as Schwann Foods and Red Baron Pizza will bring in their Blaine Kern-designed floats.

If you are in/around the Gatlinburg area for the 4th of July, be sure to take in this parade. It is a great event.

The next day, they will also have a River Raft Regatta, a race of unmanned vehicles that can include anything floatable except balls and plastic eggs.

The Great Smoky Mountain Institute at Tremont has just announced a Smoky Mountains Family Adventure Camp. The camp will be held July 3-8. The cost of the camp is $950 for a family of four and includes all meals, lodging, activities and materials.

This fun-filled week is dedicated to giving families a better appreciation of the wonders of Great Smoky Mountains National Park through hikes, hands-on explorations, and family oriented activities. We hope to give you time out of your busy schedules to focus on each other while surrounded by these ancient mountains and rushing rivers.

Smoky Mountain Family Camp is a week-long experience that includes activities for a variety of abilities. As you will see in the schedule below; we do everything from explorations of streams and local trails to some of the premier hikes in the Smokies. Families may choose to remain together for activities or to take advantage of several different choices that meet your individual interests.

For more information, visit the GSMIT website at www.gsmit.org

Ed Wright has just posted a recap of his 1300th hike to LeConte Lodge via Alum Cave Trail. He hiked it with Tilroe Smith and Tom Grubbs on May 16, 2006.

Check out his hiking log at www.mtleconte.com

In October of 2001 my wife and i traveled to the Smokys with our friends Rachel and Justin. This was the second trip we had made up there together. Rachel’s grandmother lives in Cosby, which is only about a half-our drive from Gatlinburg near the northeastern end of the park. She is really great, and it is nice to have a bed to sleep in that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg per night. She also makes possibly the greatest spaghetti and meatballs i have ever had!

Justin at the time was in Seminary in New Orleans, and was on fall break. The year before, we travelled with them as well, and Justin and I went hiking for day, and the girls went shopping. This seemed to suit all of us fine, so now it is almost like a yearly tradition.

We had hiked Rainbow Falls the previous fall, but were looking for something a little higher, to get some great views. We decided on hiking some of the AT, starting at Newfound Gap and hiking out to Charlie’s Bunion and back.

We arrived at the Newfound Gap parking lot around 8:45 a.m. It was already getting busy. I snapped a quick pic of the view as i was getting out of the truck. The temperature was somewhere in the upper 50s or low 60s.

The first stretch of the trail was suprisingly hard, gaining almost a 1000 feet in one mile. But after the first mile and a half, your legs are so numb that it doesn;t really bother you.

Along the way I decided to take pictures of the trail signs. The view to the east of the park was very clear. I would say a visual range of maybe 40-50 miles or more. We arrived at the Boulevard Trail junction and considered for a moment hiking to LeConte, but decided that it would probably not be a good idea to deviate from our preset plans. That would be saved for another day.

We stopped at Icewater Springs Shelter to rest a few minutes and eat a snack. The view from the shelter was also nice. While we were sitting there, a large group of people from Chicago came in to the shelter to rest as well. I think there were about 4 couples all hiking together. We commented to the men on how impressed we were that they were able to get their wives to come hiking with them, and they told us they were jealous of us that our wives were shopping. I snapped some photos for them, although didn’t take any with my camera, and we were off, leaving the loudness behind.

As we started back on the trail, we were hiking through a dried up creek bed, and it was mostly downhill, which made me happy until i realized that we were gonna have to hike back up it at some point.

When we finally arrived at the “Bunion”, it was pretty crowded. I would guess there were probably 10-15 people there already. We decided to use this opportunity to munch on some lunch and relax.

The views were spectacular and very clear. I had justin take a picture of me sitting on the rock with the view in the background.

We then hiked back the way we came, stopping again at Icewater Springs for just a few moments. After getting back to the trail head at Newfound Gap, we headed back to Cosby.

It was a great hike. You forget how awesome nature can be. When you’re a kid, you go camping and fishing and all that stuff, but as you get older, get out of school, get a job, and get settled in, you start to forget about nature. The hike was great, and i can’t wait to get back out on the trail.

My friend Justin and I had been planning on hiking on Monday, Octber 14. But after arriving late Sunday night (around 1 a.m. SMT (Smoky Mountain Time), we decided to postpone the hike til Tuesday. So Monday we slept late and then headed to Gatlinburg for the day.

The area known as “The Village” offers a great pastry shop in “The Donut Friar”, and there is also a hiking store there, “The Day Hiker”.

While in the store, i spotted a book called “Day HIkes of the Great Smoky Mountains”, which i bought. It was a good book, especially since it gave elevation charts of various day hikes, specifically the one that i was going to attempt the next day. When the lady working in the store asked us what we were planning on doing the next day, and we told her Low Gap to Mt. Cammerer, she started laughing.

That couldn’t be good.

The next morning, we had planned to be on the trail by 8:30, but after waiting for our wives to wake up and get ready, and then after driving to the end of the trail to leave a car, and then drive back to the trail head at Cosby Campground, it was 10:00 when we hit the trail.

The trail parallels Cosby Creek just about the entire way up to Low Gap. It started out nicely, a few steep inclines, but always buffered with some flat areas to stretch out our legs. The first leg of the hike from Cosby Campground to Low Gap would be the worst part of it, with an elevation gain of over 2000 feet in just under 3 miles. As we neared the top, the steep inclines got a little steeper, and the flat areas got a lot shorter. The trail was also rocky and rough. We did pick up another hiker along the trail. His name was Brian, and he was from Hunstville. He was camping at Cosby and was just out doing a little dayhiking to stretch his legs. I think he was planning on doing some backcountry camping later in the week. He joined us and hiked to Low Gap with us, then hiked back down after a short break at Low Gap.

We reached Low Gap around 12:30, and it started to rain a little. We almost broke out the rain gear, but decided that the trees would shield us from most of the rain. I snapped a few shots of some wildflowers, although i am not sure what they are. We continued on the Appalachian Trail towards Mt. Cammerer.

From Low Gap, it was 2.6 miles to the junction with the Mt. Cammerer Trail, a small spur off the AT that led up to the Mt. Cammerer Lookout. The elevation gain along this leg was only about 500 feet or so, and we moved pretty fast along this stretch, making good time.

At 2:00, we reached a small gap at the top of Mt. Cammerer and headed off towards the Lookout, which was0.6 miles away. The terrain was very rocky as we got closer to the lookout, but the views were worth it.

Mt. Cammerer is named for Arno Cammerer, director of the National Park Service from 1933-1940. The Lookout was built in 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) for the purpose of watching for fires. Most fire towers are built up on steel or wooden frames to sit above the treelines. But because of a rock outcrop at the top of Mt. Cammerer, known as “White Rocks” before the mountain was given the name Cammerer, the structure is a lookout, built of native stone and wood. It offers excellent views for miles in just about any direction. I took a few shots, including one looking southeast toward Mt. Sterling.

The lookout was used regularly until the 1960’s, and fell into a state of disrepair between then and the early 90’s. In 1993, the Friends of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was formed to raise funds for restoration of the lookout, which took place in 1994. The lookout has also been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

After leaving Brian at Low Gap, we were beginning to think that we were the only two people on the trail.

At the lookout, three other hikers arrived who must have been only a mile or so behind us. We did not get their names. One of the guys had grown up in Gatlinburg, another was from New Orleans, and another was originally from Grenada, MS. The guy from Grenada had been in the park since May, doing some kind of a Park Ministry, going to the different campgrounds and doing sunday morning services. Kind of neat, i thought.

As we were leaving the lookout, another gentleman walked up, but we did not get any details on him, as we had another 6 miles to hike, and were getting worried we would get caught by darkness.

The views from the lookout were incredible. It started to rain again after we arrived, and the smoke started to rise from the surrounding hills. As the cloud cover got thicker, we were above the cloudline, and it was an erie feeling. Almost as if I was standing on a shorline, watching a lake of clouds wash up on the mountains.

We left the lookout around 4:00 and proceeded on the AT towards Davenport Gap. About a mile or so down the hill, we came upon a rock outcrop that offered excellent views to the east, including mt. sterling.

As we continued, the trail got muddy, which started adding wieght to our boots. We also started to enter the cloud line, which made for an erie, foggy scene in the surrounding woods.

We came across some park service volunteers who were making trail repairs to the AT and the Lower Mt. Cammerer Trails. Without volunteers like these, the trails would probably be in pretty bad shape, so i thank them, whoever they were.

We reached a juntion with Chestnut Branch trail. This trail went directly to the Big Creek Ranger Station, which is where we had left our car earlier in the day. It was 2 miles to Davenport Gap, then another 1.3 miles to the Ranger Station, and it was getting late, so we decided to take the shorter path down Chestnut Branch.

This trail proved to be a little rough as well, with lots of rocks and roots. We reached the car around 7:00 and headed to the house for a shower and homemade spaghetti and meatballs.

We hiked 12.2 miles, the longest hike so far.

We arrived in Cades Cove around 7:00 and parked at the information center parking lot. After getting our gear together, we set off for our hike around 7:15. It was a chilly October morning. Chilly enough that I wore a light sweater for a little while until I got warmed up from walking. We walked along the edge of a field until we came to the first trail intersection.

The Rich Mountain Loop trail is actually composed of 3 trails: The Rich Mountain trail, the Crooken Arm Ridge trail, and the Indian Grave trail. There are two ways to can make this hike. You can either go left and ascend on the Rich Mountain Loop trail, passing by the John Oliver cabin, or you can go right and ascend up Crooked Arm Ridge trail.

We chose right and began our ascent. Crooked Arm Ridge trail is a 2.2 mile hike with a 1400′ elevation gain. The fall colors were in full swing and there were one or two spots that offered great views of Cades Cove as well as Rich Mountain. Crooked Arm Ridge intersects with SCott Mountain trail and Indian Grave Gap trail. Scott Mountain trail will take you down to an intersection with Chestnut Top trail, which will lead you to the Townsend Wye.

After a quick snack, we continued on Indian Grave Gap trail, with about 500 feet of ascent in just under 2 miles. As we climed, we started getting into the cloudline once we reached the top ridge of Rich Mountain. It was really socked in. On clear days, there are spectacular views of the Townsend and Tuckalechee areas, as well as views into the Cove.

We started down the mountain, intersecting with the Loop trail. There are several spots here where you can get great views of the Cove. We continued down, passing a good many people who had probably walked up from the John Oliver cabin, which is where we were heading. We took a break behind the cabin, relaxing and soaking up the sun.

We finished up just after lunch and stopped back off at the Little River Grill in Townsend for a tasty burger and some potato logs.

See more Rich Mountain photos on my Flickr page