Our destination for today was Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We headed out from Dumplin Valley and took the 30 or 40 mile drive down to the park, which sits on the Tennessee/North Carolina state line. Approaching and leaving the park from or to Tennessee has the drawback of passing through Pigeon Forge, Sevierville or Gatlinburg. All three of these towns are unfettered tourist traps with a myriad of ways to separate tourists from their money. There are rides, dinner theaters featuring the Hatfields and McCoys, a Hard Rock Cafe, a Ripley’s Believe if You’re Gullible, a model of the front half of the Titanic, a King Kong likeness attached about 20 floors up on a schmaltzy hotel, numerous themed restaurants and an abundance of tourists dressed in everything from leisure suits to denim overalls. They were all white, as far as I could tell. These towns must be cracker Mecca. I heard they had terrible recent fires in the Gatlinburg area but, apparently, the wrong part burned.
We finally made it into the park and it is magnificent. We had only gone a few miles past the gate when we turned off onto a side road to a giant meadow called Cade’s Cove. If I had lived during the Civil War, I would have hid here. It is very remote and there is only one way in and out. Not only is the terrain and forest beautiful, we soon started spotting animals. We saw not less than six black bears and there are colorful birds everywhere in this gorgeous place. There are some buildings dating back to the early 1800’s and, while the National Park Service has done a commendable job maintaining them, they still sit on their original foundation members that are stacked, irregularly shaped rocks.
We drove into Cade’s Cove when we passed through this area in 2015 and we are delighted that we have now visited again. After heading back to the main park road, we turned and passed about another 40 miles through outstanding scenery and roadside waterfalls before exiting near the bustling tourist circle of Hell, Gatlinburg.
The park is great. Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited facility within the National Park inventory and it is easy to see why. I suggest entering from North Carolina because you can miss all the tourist crap.
There’s pix. Click here