Cades Cove - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

We continued our late April 2019 visit to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with a scenic drive around Cades Cove. From the Townsend Wye, drive southwest 7½ miles on Laurel Creek Road to the beginning of the 11-mile one-way Cades Cove Loop Road. Shortly after leaving the Wye, the second paved parking area provides access to 10-foot-high West Prong Falls. We drove most of the way around the loop before taking the gravel Sparks Lane north across the cove back to near the beginning of the loop road. We then left Cades Cove by way of the gravel Rich Mountain Road by turning right beyond Hyatt Lane but immediately before the Cades Cove Missionary Baptist Church. We exited the park at Rich Mountain Gap and descended into Townsend, Tennessee.

West Prong Falls beside the road into Cades Cove

Horseshoe Ridge, Pole Knob, and Cobb Ridge from the John Oliver Cabin trail

A variety of trees grow along an old fence row

John P Cable Grist Mill

A large meadow adjacent to the parking area at the grist mill

Another large meadow

Canadian Geese

Gregory Bald, High Point, and Sugar Cove Ridge from Sparks Lane

Pole Knob from Sparks Lane

Cades Cove from Rich Mountain Road

Methodist Church and cemetery

Dogwoods in bloom

Chilhowee Mountain

Entry to Great Smoky Mountains National Park is free.

The park website is https://www.nps.gov/grsm.