Great Smoky Mountains National Park Review

My family and I recently took a vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The park is located between Tennessee and North Carolina. It is definitely a must see. The park is 814 square miles of majesty and beauty.

There are plenty of things to do while visiting the park. Hiking, biking, auto touring, fishing, and lots of others. The best part of all is you can enjoy this park and what it has to offer for free.

On our vacation we enjoyed going to Grotto Falls, Clingman's Dome, a Jr Rangers Program,Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, and Newfound Gap Rd. We also hiked for a few feet on the Appalachian Trail at it's highest point at Clingman's Dome.

Grotto Falls was a 3 mile roundtrip hike on a winding wooded trail. Since you are hiking up a mountain there is an incline but not too bad. It leads to a beautiful 25 foot waterfall. It's the only one in the park that you can walk behind.You can also let your little one play in the water. If you are wanting peace and quiet try this hike. We seen only a handful of people, maybe 6 not including 4 rangers. It was well worth the nearly 1 hour hike.

Clingman's Dome is the highest point in the GSMNP and the third highest east of the Mississippi. It is also the highest point of the Appalachian trail. Don't let the 1/2 mile hike up to the dome fool you. This is a VERY steep incline. The park provides benches along the way for rest. I'm sure the views from up top are even grander than the ones from the parking area. Unfortunately by the time we started hiking up the fog had rolled in.

Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail is a nice auto touring trail. It starts out at light #8 in Gatlinburg and runs along the back side of Gatlinburg. There are many stops along the trail. You can purchase a booklet at the beginning of the trail for $1. I suggest buying it. It provides information about the pull offs and the history of the area. Some of the points of interest are Grotto Falls, Rainbow Falls, and Mt Leconte. We seen 2 bears on two different days on the trail. This is a treat for anyone visiting the area!

Newfound Gap Road (Hwy 441) runs from Gatlinburg to Cherokee,NC. This ride takes about an hour and a half to two hours depending on how many stops you make. This roads also accesses some of the other things in the park. In order to get to Chimney Tops, Clingman's Dome, and Mingus Mill you take Newfound Gap Rd. Some of the best pictures from our trip was taken on this road. It does have some breath taking views!

We attended a Jr Ranger Program called Stream Splashers at Smokemont Campground. The park has many different jr rangers programs and in many areas of the park. The activities are held spring, summer and fall for children ages 5-12. They are both educational and fun. For the Stream Splashers all of the children were given nets and sent into the stream to "fish" for anything they could find. A handful of plastic bins were spread out in the stream for the kids to dump what they had found. Once the bins were filled the rangers took the kids to a table set up with large magnifying glasses on stands. Very carefully they placed any living things under the magnifying glasses in pitre dishes. From here, they carefully examined their finding and used a reference book to find out the names of everything caught. The rangers were very knowledgable and friendly. They not only taught about the critters but taught about the eco system and things like that. If you participate in any 3 jr ranger programs you can become an offical jr ranger.

We loved the park in every way. Upon leaving from there we were already making plans to visit again. At the Great Smoky Mountains National Park you can not only make great memories but you can be at one with nature.