My family and I spent a few days last week exploring the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and surrounding areas. Our first full day in the area was completely dedicated to the park. We first made the hour or so drive from our cabin to Cades Cove.

Black Bear

Within the first fifteen minutes we had our first wildlife spotting along the eleven mile Cades Cove motor trail, a black bear. The bear was a little tough to see in the fairly thick wooded area, but take my word that the black spot in the center of my picture is indeed a bear. We also saw a few turkeys and white-tailed deer.

Methodist Church

In addition to the chance of seeing various wildlife in Cades Cove, there are a number of historic buildings dating through the 1800’s and very early 1900’s. The kids seemed to enjoy exploring the Cable Mill area the most.

Cades Cove

Cades Cove is one of the most popular areas of the park, and traffic can move very slowly at times. We spent between two and three hours in the area and only made a couple of stops along the way.

Newfound Gap

All of my passengers in the car fell asleep pretty quickly after leaving the Cades Cove area. I decided to keep exploring the park and drove along the Little River Road to the Newfound Gap Road. I followed Newfound Gap all the way up to Clingmans Dome, at which time everyone was up and ready for a little more exploring.

Mount Le Conte

The hike to the top of Clingman’s Dome is only a half mile, and it is paved, but it is really steep and provided a pretty good workout as I pushed our double jogging stroller all the way up the trail and to the top of the observation tower. At the top we had 360 degree views of the entire area, including Mount Le Conte, the third highest peak in the park.

Clingmans Dome

Clingmans Dome is actually the highest point in the park, and it is really cool that it is so accessible for all to see. I wish the sky would have been a little clearer, but I could still make out the cities of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge with my naked eyes.

Appalachian Trail

The Appalachian Trail also crosses the area at the top of Clingmans Dome. As we were leaving the observation tower, we saw a group of four backpackers making their way along the trail, which was cool to see. Having visited the two most popular areas on the park on our first day, we spent the following day exploring Gatlinburg before returning again to the park the following day for a quick hike, which I will write about in the coming days.

Clingmans Dome Family Shot

Sevierville on Dwellable