Gravel Roads - Cades Cove - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Besides the paved 11-mile scenic loop drive, there are several gravel roads in Cades Cove that also provide scenic views. The roads include two-way Sparks Lane, Hyatt Lane, and Forge Cree Road, as well as one-way roads leaving the park such as Parsons Branch Road and Rich Mountain Road. Here are views from a few of them. We visited Cades Cove in mid-August 2022.

Mill Creek near the Whitehead Place on Forge Creek Road

View from Hyatt Lane

Another view from Hyatt Lane

Methodist Church in Cades Cove from Rich Mountain Road

Closer view of the Methodist Church

View of Horseshoe Ridge across Cades Cove 

View of the Foothills mostly outside the park from Rich Mountain Road

There is no entrance fee at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. However, a parking fee will be levied beginning March 1, 2023. The fee will be $5 for a daily tag, $15 for a seven-day tag, and $40 for an annual tag.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/grsm/index.htm.

Henry Whitehead Place - Cades Cove - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The Henry Whitehead Place is located on the gravel Forge Creek Road in the Cades Cove area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It currently consists of two cabins and a smokehouse. There once was a barn onsite as well. The surrounding forest was likely row crop and pasture land. A small garden was probably located somewhere near the cabins. The story of the cabins is both a sad and a happy one. The smaller, older, rougher cabin in the rear was hastily built by Dave, George, and Zack Shields in 1881 to provide shelter for their sister Matilda Shields Gregory after her husband, Ebeneezer Gregory, abandoned her and their son. In 1882, Matilda acquired the title to 50 acres of land surrounding her cabin from her brothers. In 1887, she married Henry Whitehead, a local carpenter. Sometime during the period 1895 to 1898, he built the larger story-and-a-half cabin immediately in front of the old cabin utilizing the newest construction techniques including square log walls instead of round logs that required chinking and a brick chimney instead of a stone one. The park is left with examples of the worst and best construction techniques of the day in one compact site.

North

West

Another view from the west

West and south

Smokehouse

East

There is no entrance fee at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. However, a parking fee will be levied beginning March 1, 2023. The fee will be $5 for a daily tag, $15 for a seven-day tag, and $40 for an annual tag.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/grsm/index.htm.

Cable Mill - Cades Cove - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

John P. Cable built this overshot grist mill in the late 1860s. It is the only mill remaining of several mills operated in Cades Cove before the national park was created. The mill is located near the Cades Cove Visitor Center about halfway around the eleven-mile one-way loop road that circles the cove.

An overshot mill utilizes a flume to redirect water from the stream to the mill. In this case, a long ditch leads to a 225-foot-long flume to bring the water from Mill Creek to a point above the 11-foot wheel and pour it into "buckets" built into the wheel. The water in the wheel causes a weight imbalance, forcing the wheel to turn. A series of gears, originally built of apple wood but later rebuilt with metal, is used to spin the runner stone just a fraction of an inch above the bed stone. By varying the distance between the two stones, the miller could create various grades of his product from cracked corn to corn meal to corn flour. Corn was the primary crop ground here, although some wheat may also have been ground. The miller was typically paid a one-eighth portion of the cornmeal that was produced.

Some of the blueprints created for the 2018 reconstruction of the water wheel

Flume and water wheel

View down the flume to the mill

Cades Cove Visitor Center

There is no entrance fee at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. However, a parking fee will be levied beginning March 1, 2023. The fee will be $5 for a daily tag, $15 for a seven-day tag, and $40 for an annual tag.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/grsm/index.htm.

Cades Cove - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

We returned to Cades Cove, one of our favorite places, again in August 2022. While we didn't see much in the way of wildlife, the scenery didn't disappoint. 

There is no entrance fee at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. However, a parking fee will be levied beginning March 1, 2023. The fee will be $5 for a daily tag, $15 for a seven-day tag, and $40 for an annual tag.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/grsm/index.htm.

Clingmans Dome - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

In mid-August 2022, we looked for a cooler hike in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We found it at Clingmans Dome on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. We drove up the Newfound Gap Road (US 441) from the Sugarlands Visitor Center in Gatlinburg, Tennessee to the state line at Newfound Gap and then drove just a bit farther to the seven-mile Clingmans Dome Road and followed it to its end in a large, but often full parking lot. The parking lot has over 140 passenger-vehicle spaces including six handicap-accessible spaces. There is no parking for motor homes, trailers, or other oversized vehicles.

After finding a place to park, we walked to the trailhead at the west end of the parking lot. This was the only level part of the hike. Upon reaching the trailhead, the paved trail ascends at about a 10% grade. At the summit, a curving ramp leads to a tower that provides an elevated overlook. Unfortunately for us, the tower was mostly in the clouds when we visited. However, we had some good views from the trail.

Ben Morton Overlook on Newfound Gap Road

View from Newfound Gap Overlook

Another view from the gap

View from the Clingmans Dome parking lot toward Fontana Lake

View from the trail as the clouds roll in

Typical trail conditions

Clingmans Dome Tower

Very limited visibility from the tower

View just three minutes later

Clouds begin to obscure this view from the parking lot

View from Collins Gap pullout on Clingmans Dome Road

View from another pullout on Clingmans Dome Road

View from the Luftee Overlook on Newfound Gap Road

There is no entrance fee at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. However, a parking fee will be levied beginning March 1, 2023. The fee will be $5 for a daily tag, $15 for a seven-day tag, and $40 for an annual tag.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/grsm/index.htm.

Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

 

The Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail is a 5½-mile one-way paved road accessible from the Cherokee Orchard entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It provides a couple of excellent viewpoints on the left side of the road as it climbs toward its namesake creek. You will be out of the park and back in Gatlinburg at the end of the road. A left turn will lead to a traffic light on East Parkway, US 321. A left turn on East Parkway will bring you back into town while a right turn heads toward Pitman Center and Cosby. Trailers, motor homes, and buses are prohibited due to the winding nature of the road. We explored the route in July 2022.

View from the first overlook

Growing back after the 2016 fire

View from the third pullout and second overlook

There is no entrance fee at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. However, a parking fee will be levied beginning March 1, 2023. The fee will be $5 for a daily tag, $15 for a seven-day tag, and $40 for an annual tag.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/grsm/index.htm.

Cades Cove Comparison - May and July - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

We visited Cades Cove in mid-May and mid-July 2022. Located on the Tennessee side of the park, it is one of the most visited locations in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. From the bright greens of late spring to the wildflowers and golden grass of summer, the changes were both dramatic and subtle. See if you can tell which images are of spring and which are of summer.

Here's a bonus of a couple of images of Meigs Falls, also on the Tennessee side of the park between the Townsend Wye and Metcalf Bottoms. These images were also taken in May and July 2022.

There is no entrance fee at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. However, a parking fee will be levied beginning March 1, 2023. The fee will be $5 for a daily tag, $15 for a seven-day tag, and $40 for an annual tag.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park website is https://www.nps.gov/grsm/index.htm.