Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 18, 1993 TAG: 9304160454
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: F-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JAMES T. YENCKEL THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS - WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE?
The lofty green ridges of Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains National Park roll across the horizon in spectacularly scenic waves that lap gently at the soul. Plunging into this wild woodland expanse, with its misty peaks, hidden coves and tumbling streams, dazzles the eye and invigorates the spirit.But I had my doubts. More than 8 1/2 million travelers tour Great Smoky annually, making it America's most heavily visited national park. Surely, I thought, the place has been trampled by the vacationing hordes.
Well, I'm happy to admit I was mistaken. The park is beautiful, as I should have known, and my fears of overcrowding proved foolish. The lush forests that blanket the steep mountain slopes have been remarkably resilient in the face of the annual tourist invasion. And I didn't find myself tripping much over my fellow visitors, even though - like everybody else - I mostly took sightseeing drives and short day hikes. The park seemed to absorb us all nicely.
And now I can't wait to get back. Fall, when the leaves are changing and days are crisp and sunny, is an especially popular time to visit.
At what point in my three-day visit did I become a convert? Maybe it was the first morning, when I awoke in a cozy hilltop inn just outside the park to watch a thick blanket of clouds lift slowly from the broad shoulders of Mount LeConte soaring high above me in the distance. Or was it the sunny afternoon I followed a rocky trail that led me right under cool, cascading Grotto Falls?
I spent much of my last day hiking and driving through remote Cades Cove, a small mountain valley deep in the park where thick woods and sun-splashed meadows wove a magical beauty. At one especially scenic spot, I sat on a stump for half an hour, or perhaps it was an hour, drinking in the view as if it were a tonic - which in a way it was. By then, of course, I was solidly hooked.
The week I arrived, in early May, a late-season storm dumped more than a foot of snow in the park's upper elevations, temporarily closing the major highway across the mountains. At the foot of the mountains, at an elevation of about 2,000 feet, spring was in full bloom, and I was in shirt sleeves. But up at 5,048-foot Newfound Gap, winter was throwing a departing snit. Blocked from hiking the scenic high country, I diverted my attention to some of the park's other less-heralded features on the lower slopes, particularly the many white-water streams spilling out of the mountains. I soon realized that almost every road I drove or trail I hiked traced the course of a stream or river.
As I explored, I also became aware of something called "Quiet Walkways," short paths to nowhere leading into the woods. As best as I could determine, they are unique to Great Smoky. Dotted along the road, each of the unusual trails departs from a parking area limited (by design) to only one or two cars. The idea is to lure motorists - a few at a time - out of their vehicles and into the comforting solitude and quiet of the forest. You don't have to walk very far to escape into a wilderness realm.
Once the park's deep valleys were home to about 6,000 rugged subsistence farmers and their families, the now almost legendary Appalachian folk who were forced to move from their old homesteads when Great Smoky was created in 1934. Many of their weathered old structures - the wood frame cabins, barns, corncribs and outhouses-have been preserved in the form of open-air museums.
One especially interesting trail, about a mile long, winds through the old Noah "Bud" Ogle Place, a typical backwoods farm that Noah Ogle and his wife Cindy settled in 1879. The rocky terrain is steep and seemingly unfit for farming, which suggests they endured a hardscrabble existence-although the Ogles apparently did manage to wrest a modest living from it.
Before the settlers showed up, the land was Cherokee, and the region's early Cherokee heritage is similarly well told in a tribal museum, re-created village and crafts shop on the Cherokee Indian Reservation at Cherokee, N.C., which is located at the southern entrance to the park. I visited Cherokee a couple of years ago, hoping to explore Great Smoky. But a dense and persistent fog - a possibility at any time - gave me only a very brief and tantalizing glimpse.
By the time the high-country road finally reopened on this visit, I had become so fascinated with the foothill streams and valleys, I decided Great Smoky's panoramic heights could await yet another visit. Nevertheless, I did make a quick drive up to the wintry summit for a clear but chilly look at the fine views, and then I just as quickly dropped back down to sunny spring.
The first stop at any national park should be the visitors center, where informational movies and exhibits can enhance one's appreciation of the history, geography, geology, scenery and other aspects of the park. Great Smoky is most famous for its mountain views, but as exhibits at the Sugarlands Visitor Center at the northern entrance explain, there is much more to the park. (The name Sugarlands was derived from the sugar maples that once stood in the area.)
Great Smoky shelters an unspoiled forest of the sort that was familiar to the Cherokees and early pioneers. Although many of the park's 520,000 acres were logged in decades past, the most extensive virgin forest in the East still stands at higher elevations, and many of the old trees are giants. Abundant rainfall has produced a multitude of plants, flowers and trees - a variety of species believed to be unequaled in other temperate areas of the world.
In turn, this diversity makes Great Smoky an attractive habitat for wildlife, which also is present in unusual variety. Perhaps the most notable residents are black bears; a thriving population of about 4,600 make the park their home. Recently, a family of red wolves, an endangered species, was reintroduced into the park in the Cades Cove area on a trial basis. I kept my eyes open there, but I saw only deer.
Shaped like a large and lumpy potato, Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles the Tennessee-North Carolina border. Much of its rugged interior, where the mountains climb above 6,000 feet, can be reached only on foot. Some 900 miles of hiking paths lace this formidable wilderness, including 71 miles of the Appalachian Trail, which roughly parallels the two-state border along the soaring backbone of the Smokies. But only a single paved highway, the Newfound Gap Road, bisects the park-crossing the mountains from Gatlinburg, Tenn., in the north to Cherokee in the south.
And yet the park's lush interior is surprisingly accessible, even to less adventurous travelers for whom a hike of a mile or two is a major challenge. Several short paved roads make deep cuts into the backwoods; other unpaved roads probe even farther, and there are several easy, well-marked nature trails extending beyond. The visitors center distributes individual brochures detailing auto tours and short, informative hikes.
\ BEFORE YOU GO\ \ WHERE TO STAY: The Tennessee resort towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge at the northern entrance to the park offer a variety of lodging choices in high-rise hotels, motor lodges, condominiums, golf resorts, bed-and-breakfast inns, private vacation homes, cabins and motels, including most of the budget chains. For information, contact the Chamber of Commerce (see below).
The national park's only hotel is the Wonderland Hotel, a rustic, decaying 27-room lodge in a woodland setting just west of the Sugarlands Visitor Center at the park's Gatlinburg entrance. For information call 615-436-5490.\ \ WHERE TO EAT: Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge offer a wide choice of places from fast-food outlets to fine riverside dining. The Peddler Restaurant & Lounge, a steakhouse that overlooks Little Pigeon River in downtown Gatlinburg, is regarded as one of the town's finest.\ \ INFORMATION: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Tenn. 37738, (615) 436-1200. Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce, (800) 568-4748 or (615) 436-4178. Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism, (800) 251-9100 or (615) 453-8574.