Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Me near where the AT crosses Clingmans Dome in the GSMNP.  Taken in April, 2009.

Trail Miles: 72

Highest Point: Clingmans Dome, 6,643 feet.  This is also the  highest point on the Appalachian Trail

I am including the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) as a state entry because the section of trail through the park roughly follows along the border between Tennessee and North Carolina.  In some places you need a GPS unit or a surveying crew to know for sure which state you are actually in.  Sometimes you might have one foot in each state.  

I grew up four hours south of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and I have probably been there fifty times.  It is an incredible place filled with a great variety of plant and animal life.  There are hundreds of native flowering plants, as well as wide variety of mosses, lichens, and fungi.  And trees.  Lots of trees.  There are an estimated 130 species of tree native to the GSMNP; that is more than the entire continent of Europe.  Many of those trees are old, too.  The park has the largest concentration of old growth forest in the Eastern US.  The park is a lush and green place, thanks to an average rainfall of 50-80 inches a year and high relative humidity during the growing season.

These woods are also filled with a huge variety of animals.  There are about 50 species of mammals, including black bears, deer, raccoons, foxes, and even flying squirrels.  There are even 30 varieties of salamanders in the park.  Birds fill these trees and the sky, too, as many as 200 different species.  Birds native to the park range in size from the tiny titmouse to the wild turkey. 

The two black spots are young black bear cubs trailing along behind Momma Bear, who is just out of the photo to the left.  Taken spring, 2009.

A mother raccoon hides in a hollowed out tree along a trail.  Spring, 2009.

The Great Smoky Mountains have a lot going for them.  They possess a great natural beauty and are teeming with wildlife, including the estimated 1,500 black bears live in the park.  The park is easily accessible for millions, within a day's drive for about a third of the US population.  A number of towns surrounding the park offer a multitude of lodging, dining, and recreation options.  All these things help make the GSMNP the most visited national park in the country.  Some years it receives twice the amount of visitors that the second most visited park gets.  All these visitors take a toll on the park.  There are few roads through the park, thankfully, but the ones there can be a logjam during busy weekends in the summer and fall.  On busy days, parking lots at trailheads, visitor centers and picnic areas are filled beyond capacity 

A number of years ago, not long after my wife and I were married, we went to the Smokies for a long weekend.  One day we were in Gatlinburg, the tourist town at the most heavily used park entrance on the Tennessee side of the park.  We stopped in a small shop along the main street.  While we browsed, the store's only employee on duty struck up a conversation with us.  He told us he was a park ranger in the park, and he worked this store job because the ranger pay was so low.  It was sad to hear that he had to work another job in order to be able to afford to do the ranger job he loved.

As we talked, he told us something that was even more sad.  He said that he loved the park and couldn't imagine being anywhere else, but the people were ruining it.  He said that he could walk through the most remote parts of the park, places so remote he would think no human had pass there in a hundred years.  Then he would look down at his feet and find a Snicker's wrapper.  He worried about the future of the park if people did not learn to treat it with respect. 

The stretch of the AT that travels through the GSMNP is the highest stretch of the trail, and it is tough going.  At Clingmans Dome, the AT reaches its highest point.  This is also the third highest point east of the Mississippi.  In addition to this peak, a number of others offer breathtaking views of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains to the east and the Cumberland Plateau to the north and west.  One of the most beautiful vistas on the entire AT is Charlies Bunion (link: http://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/chimneys-alternative-charlies-bunion.htm) 

My daughter Casey atop a pile of snow left from winter at Clingmans Dome trailhead parking lot, April 2009.

When I think of the Appalachian Trail, the first thing that comes to mind is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  The park is the only place many hikers ever experience the AT.  If they can only hike a stretch of the trail, the 70 or so miles in the GSMNP are the best possible place to be.  I wish I was there now.