Great Smoky Mountains National Park Attractions

One of the most popular areas of the park, Cades Cove is loaded with things to do. In addition to the year-round campground (which has the only snack bar in the park; closed in winter), Cades Cove offers a picnic area, horse stables that give guided trail rides and hay rides (closed in winter), a bike rental shop (closed in winter), a visitors center, and an 11-mile, one-way loop road that winds through the 6,800-acre valley itself.

The drive is one of the best spots in the park for viewing wildlife (most active and visible in the early morning and at dusk) and also takes visitors past a treasure trove of preserved mountaineer homesteads -- many dating from the 1800s -- that are all open to the public for exploration. Count on several hours for the loop drive (although there are two cut-offs that take you to the opposite side, closer to the exit, if you want to get back quicker), thanks to the long line of cars that snake through here daily, as well as the "bear jams" caused when some of the more famous and furry park residents amble into view. You'll also find a few trailheads for great hikes along the road (most notably the hike to Abrams Falls, a five-mile roundtrip hike of moderate difficulty -- not for younger explorers unless you're carrying them in a baby backpack).

The loop drive is open year-round but is closed from sunset to sunrise. From early May through late September, it's also closed to motor vehicles on Wednesday and Saturday mornings until 10 a.m., when walkers and bicyclists rule the road.

To get to Cades Cove, take Little River Road from the Sugarlands Visitors Center and just keep driving, even after the road changes names to Laurel Creek Road at the Townsend entrance. Another option is to enter the park at the Townsend entrance and turn right onto Laurel Creek Road.

Restrooms are located both in the Cades Cove campground right before the start of the loop drive and at the Cades Cove Visitors Center, which is about halfway around the loop drive.

This 2.6-mile roundtrip trail (off of Little River Road, about four miles from the Sugarlands Visitor Center) is the only hiking trail in the park that's paved (not counting a handful of nature trails). It's fairly flat -- the elevation gain is only 300 feet -- making it ideal for families with small children. You can even push a stroller on it.

You can purchase a trail guide that talks about the various trees and other natural features you'll pass along the way. It's only a dollar, and if you don't manage to buy one at one of the visitors centers, you can buy one on the honor system from a box near the trailhead.

The falls at the end are 85 feet high and quite pretty, although the rocks around them can be dangerous, so be sure to keep your kids on the path. It's a nice walk in any season, but in spring, the mountain laurel, rhododendron, and dogwood make it especially pretty.

There are no restroom facilities at the trailhead -- the closest option is at the Sugarlands Visitor Center. The parking at the trailhead fills up fast in summer, so plan to start your hike earlier in the morning.

Sitting next to the Oconaluftee Visitors Center, near the park's Cherokee, N.C., entrance, this open-air museum is a working farm made up of a collection of buildings moved here from other areas in the park. Dating from around 1900, these buildings include a fully furnished log cabin home (usually staffed by volunteer interpreters in period costume), a chicken house, a sorghum mill, corn cribs, apple houses, a smokehouse, a blacksmith's shop, a springhouse, a very large barn and an outhouse (although the Plexiglas front prevents you from exploring this structure too closely). As you follow the gravel path past the structures, and also past the vegetable garden, corn patch, fruit trees and bee gums, you'll get a pretty good idea of what it was like to be an Appalachian farmer during this time. Keep an eye out for the hens and roosters scurrying about, and peer over the hog pen at the far end of the walkway.

The original Oconaluftee Visitors Center currently stands adjacent to the museum, although the park service is building a larger and more modern visitors center in the field in front of the farm (currently scheduled to open in late 2010).

One of the most interesting times to see the museum is during the annual Mountain Life Festival, held on a Saturday in late September. The free event includes demonstrations of making sorghum molasses, apple butter, hominy, apple cider, and lye soap. A toymaker creates old-fashioned mountain toys, and live mountain music adds a little flair, as well. Restrooms are located at the visitors center.

Newfound Gap is roughly at the midpoint of Newfound Gap Road, which connects the Sugarlands Visitors Center on the Tennessee side with the Oconaluftee Visitors Center on the North Carolina side. The scenic overlook, at 5,048 feet in elevation, offers mountain views that are simply stunning on clear days. It's obvious why this was chosen as the spot for President Roosevelt to dedicate the park in 1934. The Appalachian Trail also crosses over this place, right on the state line between Tennessee and North Carolina.

On the Tennessee side, just before the Newfound Gap parking lot, you'll see a turnoff to the right. This is Clingmans Dome Road (closed in winter), a seven-mile spur that takes you to the trailhead for the short but steep Clingmans Dome trail. At the end of this half-mile path is an observation tower that will give you a 360-degree Smoky Mountain view. (Note: The trail is paved all the way, so you can push a stroller up it, but be prepared to take rest breaks, because it is quite steep.) Clingmans Dome, at 6,643 feet in elevation, is the highest point in the park (not to mention the entire state of Tennessee) and the third highest mountain east of the Mississippi. Restrooms are located near both the parking lot for Newfound Gap and the parking lot for Clingmans Dome.

This mostly one-way, nine-mile drive (closed in winter) is shorter and more wooded than Cades Cove, but also has plenty of historic structures from houses to gristmills to explore along the way. Not counting stops, it will take you about an hour to drive, depending on traffic, starting from where you turn at traffic light #8 in Gatlinburg onto Historic Nature Trail/Airport Road and then Cherokee Orchard Road (which leads to the formal entrance of the nature trail).

Along this route, you'll pass the Noah "Bud" Ogle Self-Guiding Nature Trail, a 0.75-mile mile path through a preserved mountain farmstead well worth a diversion. You'll also pass the trailhead for the popular Rainbow Falls Trail, a 5.4-mile roundtrip hike that's moderate to difficult -- strictly for older kids or exceptionally hike-hardy younger kids. Further on the drive, you'll come upon the trailhead for the Trillium Gap Trail, which leads to Grotto Falls (a 2.4-mile moderate hike if you just go as far as the falls and back -- doable for most children if you adjust the pace to match their ability). Grotto Falls is one of the most popular waterfall hikes in the park because the trail allows you to walk behinds the falls for an unusual -- and fun -- perspective.
Near the end of motor trail on the left side of the road is a rocky cliff called Place of a Thousand Drips, which has anywhere from a trickle of water running down its face during dry spells to a series of pretty cascading rivulets during rainy weather.

Vault toilets are available at the trailheads for the Rainbow Falls and Trillium Gap trails, but otherwise there are not restrooms along this route.