Trip to the Great Smoky Mountains — Summer 2021
After a lot of planning and forethought on where to go for the July 4th weekend, we zeroed in on the Most visited national park of the US — Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
We had started from Des Moines, IA and reached Nashville, TN on July 1st night. Then had taken the rental car from the BNA airport to drive around ~3 hours to Knoxville. Surprisingly, the AVIS rental car counter in the airport was pretty empty and we were the only customers there even though the rental car industry has been pretty busy due to the post COVID travel rush in the recent times.
On that good note we started to Knoxville, TN which is approximately an hour away from the national park. We reached the hotel fairly tired and rested for the night excited about the ziplining that we were gonna do the next day.
Day 1 — July 2nd
We started to the CLIMB Works site where we will be doing the ziplining. Our reservation for the party of 4 was at 1 pm and we were told to be there 40 mins before for the check-in procedures and related stuff. We were lucky to get the reservation just couple days before our actual date of ziplining, but would recommend booking at least 1 week in advance checking the weather.
After wearing the zipline gear (which includes a water bottle), we were driven in an ATV to the top of the mountain where there was a ziplining tree platform. We were all excited about this!
Our tour guides were Mik, Raine and Megan and all three were very knowledgeable and super funny. They gave us some great tips and did some amazing tricks on the ziplines and encouraged everyone to do those. It is a 6 course zip line with varying length, height and speed for each one. There will be other people in the party as well and there are two parallel lines to zip. The views of the mountains were amazing !!
At each point the tour guides Mik and Raine gave us a brief history of that point and the mountains nearby in particular. Megan took pictures of all of us at various spots in the ziplines all along the tour and those were up for purchase at the check out. All in all it took around 2.5 hours from check in to check out.
We then went to Gatlinburg very famished. We drove around the town to explore what was there and it was very very busy and had a great vibe to it with tons of activities, parking lots and food options that were available. Best way to explore the town is to walk by foot.
There is ‘Marathon’ gas station at the end of the Gatlinburg town on US-441 S and right beside it was ‘Cici’s’ pizza which is a pizza buffet restaurant. We went in there and tried their soup, pasta, breadsticks, pizza and deserts. Highly recommend that restaurant and you have a very decent parking space for customers, so you don’t need to worry about it, which is a bonus in Gatlinburg.
After that we entered the Great Smoky Mountain National Park near the North Entrance turnaround and took some good pictures. There is a limited parking space where you can park the vehicle for a few minutes, take a picture of the national park board sign and explore the trail along side a beautiful creek.
After contemplating to hike to ‘Grotto falls’ and ‘Baskin creek’ falls we ended up hiking to the ‘Laurel Falls’. If you are a fan of waterfalls, you will definitely love the Smokies as there are many many waterfalls in the park with amazing views.
Once we were at the Laurel falls trail parking, a rumor was going around that there was a Mama black bear along with her two cubs that was spotted on the trail. We were asking few people about this and indeed one young lady spotted the cubs but not the mama bear. We were little bit nervous and bit excited about the potential wildlife encounter. Nevertheless, we carried on with our hike to the Laurel falls. It was a 1.3 mile round trip hike with great views of the valleys and it was lush green everywhere in between.
It was almost sunset time by the time we came back to the Laurel falls trail parking lot and we were headed to explore Pigeon forge town. It’s a big brother of Gatlinburg with a lot more food joints, activities, gift shops, ATV rentals etc. present there. If you are a fan of fast-food, this is the place to grab a bite while you are in the Smokies.
Day 2 — July 3rd
Day 1 was a long day for us and we had relaxed at the hotel for a little longer on day 2’s morning. So we had a rather late start to the day after having our brunch. We had so many trails in our minds to explore but were unable to decide on what to do among the cataract falls, mingo falls or the arch rock . As we had already been to a waterfall on day 1, we decided to go to ‘Arch rock’.
We continued to drive into the woods along the US- 441 S and parked at the ‘Alum Cave bluff trail' head’s parking lot. There was access to ‘west prong little pigeon river’ at the entrance of the trail which was beautiful. There were numerous small wooden bridges all along the trail including near the entrance.
This was the best trail we’ve taken in the Smokies. The terrain was little rough and steep but the ‘Alum cave trail’ had so many wonderful spots where the ‘Alum cave creek’ was just gorgeous. The sound of water flowing, cutting through the rocks on it’s path is still reverberating in my ears! No wonder there were so many people that were taking this trail.
This trail till the arch rock was 1.3 miles one way. The terrain was not challenging till the 1 mile mark but after that it got steep and rocky. To cross the ‘Styx branch’ of the ‘Alum cave creek’ there were few bridges that were carved directly from the trunk of a tree. These were very beautiful.
The bridge shown above is so narrow that we can maintain just a single file. From this point it was just 0.3 mile to the ‘Arch rock’. We were planning to end our hike at ‘Arch Rock’, but there were some people who were continuing there hike till Mt. Le Conte which was 5 miles from the trail head's parking lot. Carry lots of water on this trail.
It was a very satisfying hike. After finishing this trail and getting some gatorade and water from our car, we then drove along south US 441 and took a right turn on the Clingman’s Dome road to the most famous ‘Clingman’s Dome’ to take a 360 degree look at the Smokies. This is technically in North Carolina State. Parking is very tricky here but as we were there almost at the end of the day(around 6 pm) , we were able to find some parking. There is a 0.5 mile paved trail to the top of the ‘Clingman’s Dome’ which is a little bit steep but not very challenging. It is well worth it as the views from the dome are spectacular and you can take a 360 degree look at the beautiful Smokies.
Right beside the ‘Clingman’s Dome’ trail, there was ‘Appalachian trail’ which was covered in canopy along with lot of fern trees and we were lucky enough to spot a deer in that trail! We were then headed to ‘Newfound gap’ right at the border of North Carolina and Tennessee. After exploring the area and witnessing some great views, we called it a day.
Day 3 — July 4th
This was the last day and short day for us as we had to travel around ~3.5 hours from Gatlinburg back to Nashville to take our flight to Des Moines. We wanted to plan well and keep the day short so that we won’t be late for our flight. We parked at the ‘Marathon’ gas station as the parking was relatively inexpensive ($6 a day compared to $15 or $20 in the Center of Gatlinburg) and also we planned to go Ober Gatlinburg which was just 4 blocks away from the ‘Marathon’ gas station. We highly recommend getting coupons from Smoky mountain coupon book which might save you a couple of dollars off of the Aerial tramway tickets amongst other stuff at Ober. Aerial tram is huge and can accommodate around 120 people and transport them to the top of the mountain. You get good views of Gatlinburg as well as the mountains atop.
At the top of the amusement park and ski area that can be accessed by the aerial tram, there are many gift shops, food courts, activities that we can do. I’d recommend trying out few activities while there such as Ice skating, mountain coaster, Alpine slide, wildlife encounter etc. depending on your time and interest. We wanted to see a black bear so bad so we went into the ‘Wildlife encounter’. Each activity has a separate ticket and the price varies depending on the activity. We had our lunch at one of the food courts in the amusement park on top but were not satisfied with the quality, won’t recommend the pizza there. We had seen some cool wild animals such as bears, gray and red fox, turkey vulture, owls etc. in captivity at the ‘Wildlife encounter’ and the official there educated us about the ‘river otters’, their lifestyle, food etc. that were present.
We descended to the town of Gatlinburg via the aerial tramway and then started our journey back to the Nashville airport resulting in the culmination of a fantastic trip to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, which will bring a lot of great memories to us for the years to come!
