If I Were Going...: Great Smoky Mountains in the Fall

Fall trees

Here’s a way overdue post. I don’t know why I couldn’t get around to chronicling my October trip to the Smokies. Maybe Christmas decorating (and undecorating), Christmas shopping, our holiday party and our trip to the Birmingham Bowl (yeah, another overdue blog). So, anyway, here’s a short overview.

We live in Colorado, which is beautiful and has beautiful autumns with all those yellow aspens. But, we don’t get full-scale orange/red/yellow fall. Caty had some time off in October and wanted to go to Great Smoky Mountains National Park for a little touch of fall color. Of course, I was in! Then, we found out Donna and Rick would be there for part of the time. Even better.

The east has great fall colors

We booked a round-trip flight to Knoxville, partially using miles. If we had thought it through a bit more, we would have flown into Knoxville and returned from farther north so we could have driven the Blue Ridge Parkway up to Shenandoah National Park. Oh, well…

I won’t go through a day-by-day rundown because it’s been awhile and it probably doesn’t serve much purpose. But, I will go through the different places we went (which was pretty much everywhere you can drive a rental car in the park).

But, first, a little about the park, which is the most visited national park, probably because is accessible to highly populated areas and enjoys good weather virtually year round. Because it is bisected by a major through-road, it also has no entrance stations or entrance fees.

Map: NPS

It turns out that fall is most visited time, which made for some pretty crowded roads and parking lots. We stayed in Gatlinburg, which was crazy crowded. We quickly learned to use the by-pass to enter the park so we could avoid the busy tourist area of Gatlinburg.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The border between Tennessee and North Carolina runs northeast to southwest through the centerline of the park. And, the Appalachian Trail also passes through the center of the park.

Caty

The park was chartered by the United States Congress in 1934 and officially dedicated by FDR in 1940. It encompasses 816.28 square miles, making it one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States, where national parks are far less common than in the west. The main park entrances are at Gatlinburg, Tenn., and Cherokee, N.C.

Before the arrival of European settlers, who came in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, the region was part of the homeland of the Cherokees. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, beginning the process that eventually resulted in the forced removal of all Indian tribes east of the Mississippi River to Oklahoma (the “trail of tears”). Many of the Cherokee left, but some, led by renegade warrior Tsali, hid out in the area that is now the park. Some of their descendants now live in the Qualla Boundary to the south of the park. This visit was the first I had noticed bi-lingual signs.

New signs

White settlers brought farming and logging and the park abounds with artifacts of their existence, with cabins, mills and logging roads. During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration, and other federal organizations made trails, fire watchtowers and other infrastructure improvements.

The Appalachian Mountains are an ancient mountain range, much older (and thus, more eroded) than the Rocky Mountains. The “smoky” name comes from the ever-present mist that makes the mountains look blue and smoky. Precipitation averages from 55 inches per year in the valleys to 85 inches per year on the peaks. This is more annual rainfall than anywhere in the United States outside the Pacific Northwest and parts of Alaska and Hawai'i.

The "smoky" part

The park is almost 95 percent forested, and almost 36 percent of it is estimated by the Park Service to be old growth forest with many trees that predate European settlement of the area. It is one of the largest blocks of deciduous, temperate, old growth forest in North America. Because of the wet climate, the park is full of streams and waterfalls.

GSMNP has lots of waterfalls

It is home to Deer, Black Bears and recently reintroduced eEk (although the Elk there now are Manitoban Elk rather than the native Eastern Elk, which are extinct).

Bugling

Elevations in the park range from 876 feet at the mouth of Abrams Creek to 6,643 feet at the summit of Clingman's Dome. Within the park a total of sixteen mountains reach higher than 6,000 feet.

Over the course of our visit, we went to Clingman’s Dome twice – the first time was a brutally cold and icy morning with a brisk wind. We opted not to hike to the top.

We went back a few days later when the weather was better and hiked the long, curving concrete path to the top. It is a bit sad up there because the hemlock trees have been stricken by the hemlock woolly adelgid, a non-native insect. Eventually, it will probably kill all the hemlocks.

Dead trees

But, the drive up was gorgeous.

Autumn

While up there, I took a moment to recreate a photo from my childhood ...

I love going back again and again

We drove the Cades Cove Loop Road twice – hoping to see Bears, which we didn’t.

Cades Cove barn

We hiked (with Donna) to Laurel Falls up an easy concrete path. We were a bit disappointed that a concrete barrier had been built – probably to stop people from falling over the falls. It made it far less pretty than it used to be. And, we visited Mingo Falls, which is not actually in the park. Unfortunately, we had to wait about 45 minutes to take good pictures because some idiots were climbing around the base of the falls (in inappropriate shoes; we thought for sure we’d see something ugly happen).

Two falls: Laurel and Mingo

We went out to Cataloochee on the east side to see elk and were rewarded with a handsome herd.

Bull Elk

And, we drove lots of the backcountry roads, including Rich Mountain Road, Big Creek Road and Balsam Mountain Road …

The road was in good condition

Plus, the lovely Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail ...

A good fall vista

We visited lots of historic buildings, including Oconoluftee and the Mingus Mill …

GSMNP features lots of living history

The Whitehead Cabin on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail ...

Such a pretty setting

The John Oliver Cabin in Cades Cove ...

Caty poses

The Cades Cove Mill ...

This one is still operating

The Mill's sifter

The Palmer Chapel in Cataloochee ...

So peaceful

In addition, we drove the Foothills Parkway ...

... which skirts the west side of the park and had some of the most beautiful foliage of the whole trip ...

Brighter leaves, brighter skies

... and then wound around past Fontana Dam ...

The lake

... to a road that zipped around curve after curve and was heavily populated with motorcycles.

At first, we figured the traffic was because it was a beautiful fall Saturday. Then, we passed several photographers under canopies who were taking photos of the motorcyclists. We started to think we had fallen into a road rally. But, actually, we were driving on US 129, which is also known as “Tail of the Dragon at Deal's Gap.” It has 318 serious curves in 11 miles and is billed as “America's number one motorcycle and sports car road.”

The photographers sell the pix at the gas station at the end of the road. We didn’t even inquire if they had snapped our rental car.

Of course, most of our adventures were leaf peeping ...

Wow!

Another interesting (and funny) adventure was walking through the Old Elkmont Resort Community (also known as the “Elkmont Ghost Town”), an area that used to house private vacation homes but is now part of the Park.

Look what we found!

The homes are deteriorating. I think the Park Service was going to tear them down until a group of citizens has them declared a historic site and now the park Service is trying to decide what to do with them. We also saw the Wonderland Hotel, which opened in 1912 and closed in 1992.

So sad that it has come to this

The reason the visit was funny is that Donna had seen a video on YouTube about a hiker who “discovered” the Ghost Town, implying that no one knew where it was. Actually, it has interpretive signs! Not much of a discovery.

With all our driving, we saw only one Bear -- in the early morning on the main highway.