Great Smoky Mountains National Park
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Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Between North Carolina and Tennessee
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a beautiful place to plan your next family vacation. If your preference is a camping trip, look no further for an outdoor adventure as this place has many campgrounds! If it’s a backpacking trip you’re interested in, this park has a number of backpacking trails that will keep you busy for many years. There’s fly fishing, wildlife galore, beautiful scenery for outstanding outdoor pictures, history, whitewater rafting and tubing the rivers, and some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet. The surrounding area also offers plenty for a family, couple or individual to keep you busy for many visits to one of the most visited National Park areas in the country! Check below for Great Smoky Mountains National Park information. Photo ©2008 StuMarks & Adventure-Crew, Inc
Uniqueness
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the largest protected areas in the Eastern United States and is one of the most pristine natural areas in the East. A tour through the park offers visitors breathtaking mountain scenery, including panoramic views, tumbling streams, and mature hardwood forests stretching to the horizon. World renowned for the diversity of its plant and animal life, the beauty of its ancient mountains, the quality of it’s remnants of Southern Appalachian mountain culture, and the depth and integrity of its wilderness sanctuary. Over 10,000 species have been documented in the park and scientists believe an additional 90,000 species may live here. It was once a part of the Cherokee homeland, but today the Smokies are a hiker’s paradise with over 800 miles of hiking trails. Hiking ranges from easy to difficult with 30 minute walks to week-long backpacking trips. The Appalachian Trail runs for 70 miles along the park’s top ridge.
Although there are no mountain bike trails in the park, bicyclers are allowed to travel the 11 mile loop of Cades Cove to enjoy the wildlife and 19th century homesteads. Cades Cove offers many activities from hayrides, horseback riding and hiking, to a mill and a few antique churches. It is the heaviest visited attraction in the heaviest visited national park in the nation. It is rated the number one place to see deer and black bears, as well as the Pileated Woodpecker-an exciting adventure to just come across as you meander down the woodland path leading to some of the old homesteads. They also allow bicycling on the lower sections of Deep Creek and Indian Creek trails and on the closed-to-motorized-traffic section of the Foothills Parkway. The Deep Creek trails are 2 miles and 2.9 miles. The Foothill Parkway is nine miles one-way, but is a very steep grade.
In the Smoky’s high country, over 85″ of rain falls on average each year, feeding over 2,100 miles of rushing mountain streams and rivers that flow through the park. The park abounds with the two ingredients essential for waterfalls—water and an elevation gradient. Waterfalls dot the waterways throughout the park, attracting over 200,000 visitors each year to the park’s better known falls. There are several water falls, ranging from small to pretty spectacular, that you can hike to reach. These hiking trails range from easy to strenuous and are well worth the effort. One of the falls, Grotto Falls, has the distinction that you can even walk behind it as you continue on down the backpacking trail! Only one can be seen from the road, so if you enjoy waterfalls, get out those hiking boots. After a hot, summer day of hiking, the Deep Creek area on the North Carolina side offers opportunities to cool off by tubing the shallow river nearby the camping site there.
Several roads throughout the park can be driven to see beautiful scenes of mountain grandeur off the beaten track. You’ll be able to get plenty of gorgeous outdoor pictures or even that special national park picture as you pose at the branch of the Appalachian Trail off of the New Found Gap visitor stop-off, where thousands of adventurers, past and present, have hiked the multi-state trail. A 60-minute audio cassette tape is available to serve as your personal tour guide as you drive the Newfound Gap Road that crosses the Smokies’ crest. It includes explanations of landmarks, interviews with former residents, and more. All items may be purchased at visitor centers. As weather sometimes influences the condition of the park roads, check with the park district to see which roads are open when you want to travel. You also won’t want to miss Clingmans Dome where the steep, but paved, path leads to an observation tower, elevation 6,643 feet, where on a clear day you can see for miles. A road guide and self-guided auto tour booklets are available for several popular, and a few quieter destinations in the park. Some of the distinct road names you’ll see are Balsam Mountain/Heintooga Road, Cades Cove Loop Road (closed to motor vehicles on Wednesday and Saturday mornings until 10:00 a.m. during May and September to allow bicyclists and pedestrians to enjoy the cove), Little Greenbrier Road, Parson Branch Road, Rich Mountain Road, Roaring Fork Road, and Roundbottom/Straight Fork Road.
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