Of the 58 areas in the United States designated as national park, the Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited. In fact out of the nearly 400 units in the entire National Park system, the park is the third most visited unit, eclipsed only by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California and the Blue Ridge Parkway connecting the Great Smoky Mountains to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. One of the reasons the park is so popular is it is a park for all seasons. Whereas many parks see the lion's share of their visitation in a matter of two to four months of the year, GSMNP's slowest months (Dec, Jan & Feb) eclipse the annual visitation of many parks.
(author note: sorry for getting this out a day late. Had a very busy weekend and Monday and was unable to cull everything together in time for the normal Tuesday release date.)
Getting There
If you aren flying to the park, the closest airports to the park are those in Knoxville, TN and Asheville, NC, but the Greenville-Spartanburg, Chattanooga and Charlotte airports are all less than 100 miles from the park. While you can bike or hike into the park from one of the nearby communities, the park is most accessible by automobile. In fact driving tours are among the most popular activities in the park.
Where to stay
If you want to stay in the park, the park offers 10 frontcountry campgrounds with facilities for RVs, pop-up trailers and tents. Some campgrounds require advance reservations during the peak seasons running from May through October, while the rest of the year along with the other remaining campgrounds are available on a first come, first serve basis.
Waterfalls Galore
The Great Smokies get over 7 feet of precipitation per year, fueling literally hundreds of waterfalls throughout the park, the tallest reaching 100 feet in height. Most require some hiking to reach, but a few are accessible by car. I'll highlight just a few of the falls, but for more detail about the waterfalls you can choose to visit, there is a nice inexpensive guide of the 40 most popular waterfalls in the park and its vicinity: Waterfalls of the Smokies. Plus, by buying the book from the link above, you are supporting the Great Smoky Mountains Association, the park's non-profit cooperating association.
Mouse Creek Falls
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Grotto Falls
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Ramsey Cascades
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Rainbow Falls
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Leaf Peeping
The busiest time of year in the park is from mid October to early November when the fall foliage reaches its peak. The forests are splashes with an array of color owed in large part to the diversity of trees found here. The park has more varieties of trees than is found in all of Europe and with most being deciduous in the lower elevations, there is no shortage of autumn color. As in the most spectacular displays of foliage in New England, the best foliage performance is generally turned in by the maples (sugar, red, mountain and silver). Other trees that tend to be good are the oaks, hickories, beeches and cherries.
The most popular drives to see the foliage are the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, the Laurel Creek Road to Cades Cove historic area and the road that traverses the Tennessee/North Carolina border through the park, the Newfound Gap Road.
Historic Structures
Great Smoky Mountains, unlike many western parks that never saw much in the way of settlement and development, is dotted with many historic cabins, mills, churches, barns and other buildings used by the area's residents until the park's creation in the 1930's. Many hundreds of people had to moved out of the authorized park area once the park was established, leaving these many abandoned structures that offer a look back at life 80-100 years ago or more. The best places to see these buildings are in Cades Cove, Oconaluftee and Cataloochee.
Cades Cove Methodist Church
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Mingus Mill at Oconaluftee
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Ola Baptist Church in Little Cataloochee
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Blooming Wildflowers, Shrubs and Trees
From March through July, a variety of wildflowers can be found blooming in the park from the low elevation hollows to the high elevation ridges. February, March, April and May see many trees blooming, such as the red flowers of the maples or the small white blooms of the pin cherries. In May and June, mountain laurels display their white, pink and purple blooms. The azaleas and rhododendrons (both rosebay in lower and mid elevations and Catawba principally in the high elevations) show their blooms in June, July and August.
Quaker ladies
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Catawba
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Fire Pinks
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Crested Dwarf Irises
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Azaleas
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Azaleas
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Wildlife watching
In Great Smoky Mountains, there are three large mammals that tend to get most of the wildlife viewing attention: black bears, white-tail deer and elk. GSM bears tend to be smaller than most other black bears, though large individuals (300 lbs+) do exist. The park is home to about 1500 of bears. Unlike black bears elsewhere in the country, the black bears here are actually black as opposed to also including cinnamon, brown and blonde coats. They are generally active April through October as they forage for acorns, nuts, berries, moths and other insects. They are also known to kill smaller animals and feed on animals killed by other means (e.g. road kill of deer or elk. Slow down on the roads!!). In the winter months, the bears reduce their activity, but do not fully hibernate. They will come out of their dens, often times looking for a quick meal. You should never approach a bear, especially a cub. Mother bears are very protective of their young. You should also avoid doing anything that will habituate the bears to people, such as feeding them or leaving food where they can get to it. A bear that loses its fear of humans is more likely to seek out humans to acquire food and become dependent on people for food, losing their wildness. Such bears often have to be destroyed because of the danger they pose to people. A fed bear is a dead bear!
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Though they are the most common species of deer in North America, the white-tail deer congregate in the protection of the forests of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They are more easily seen in the fall when the trees and shrubs begin dropping their leaves, but can be seen any time of year throughout the park. They are frequently seen in Cades Cove.
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The Eastern Elk that once dominated the Appalachians was hunted to extinction in the 1800's, but after feasibility studies were conducted in the 1990's, a similar but physically smaller species, the Rocky Mountain Elk, were reintroduced into the park in 2001 from a variety of herds in the western U.S. and Canada. Environmental assessments of the success of the project as well as a management plan for the species are now underway. The elk in the park tend to be more plentiful and visible on the North Carolina side of the park, in particular in the Maggie Valley at Cataloochee. A smaller herd can also be found frequenting the meadows north of the Oconaluftee visitor center.
Photo credits:
Jim Dollar,
Frank Kehren,
ccho,
Darren Blackburn,
fwissue,
Carl Wycoff,
Wes Bolton,
Jon Erickson,
Mark Larson,
Bill Swindaman,
Doug Bradley,
J. Stephen Conn,
Debbie Campbell and
Larry WFU All images republished in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons license under which they were originally published and released. Some rights reserved.