Smoky Mountain Hiking

I had planned on doing some hiking around Metcalf Bottoms on July 3, but our plans for picnicing there for the day were rained out.

On July 4th, I decided about 10:00 to go hiking somewhere, and picked Chimney Tops because it is a relatively short trail. I departed from the chalet and arrived at the trail head around 10:50. The main lot was full and I had to park down the road a bit at a pull-off area. I hit the trail head at 11:00 and was on my way.

The first mile or so of the trail is not too bad. You are basically criss-crossing Road Prong and climing maybe 200 feet or so. The trail was fairly wide and smooth, with a few sections of rocks and roots.

At 0.9 miles, you come to the junction of Road Prong trail that continues up the mountain to meet the AT after 2.4 miles. The next section of the Chimney Tops trail is pretty steep. I was told by another hiker that it was the steepest climb in the park, and I believe it. We are looking at a gain of about 700ft in a mile, and it is straight up. No zig-zagging here.

I hiked Low Gap a few years ago, and it has 2000 feet in 3 miles, but the trail criss-crosses the mountain going up. This was a straight ascent.

Once you are past this stretch, it is pretty easy going. Still up hill, but not as steep. You round the corner and the chimneys come into view. As you get closer, the trail goes over roots and rocks. There are pretty good views of LeConte and the Newfound Gap road area from the lower landing. They best views are from the top of the Chimneys. To get there you have to make a 30 foot climb up the rock.

I arrived at the Chimneys about 12:30 and clouds were starting to move in. There were still some great views toward LeConte and Clingmans Dome, but looking out over the end of the Chimneys was kind of cloudy. The views to the south were completely clouded over.

I headed back down the trail and met quite a few people coming up. I got back to the car about 1:30 and was on my way back to town.

This was my first time out on the trails in about a year (unless you count Clingman’s Dome and the Fighting Creek Nature Trail), and it was great to be out in the woods again. I am hoping to be able to conquer LeConte when we go back in October.

View more photos on my Flickr page

Smoky Mountain Hiking contains news and information related to hiking in and around the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in east Tennessee and western North Carolina.

This site was started as a hiking log for Jeremy Flint and has evolved to contain not only his personal hiking logs, but other news and events surrounding the Great Smoky Mountains, as well as the towns surrounding that area: Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Sevierville, Townsend and Cosby.

Welcome to Smoky Mountain Hiking. This site began as a collection of hiking logs by me, Jeremy Flint. Over time, it has grown to include other items related to developments and news surrounding the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

I am slowly moving content over from my old database, so there will be plenty more here to read very soon.