It's better off the beaten path than on
We visited GSMNP last week. Drove in Monday evening, left Friday morning. We came in via Gatlinburg (tourist trap), and took the road around the north side of the park (scenic). Mostly an easy road, but becomes very twisty, and is unpaved along a stretch. We initially stayed at the Big Creek campground. Nice place, there were very few people there. But maybe that was because it was cold, rainy, and a Monday evening.
The next day the weather cleared up for us and we walked up Big Creek for about 6 miles, to the first two campsites there. The scenery was nice, and the gurgling of Big Creek was also nice. We didn't see anyone the entire hike out, and ate lunch in the further campsite. On the way back we passed a few groups of people heading in. We got back in time for some rain clouds to come in, and we ended up going to bed early. The rain ended up turning into snow. The next morning we packed up and continued to drive clockwise around the park.
While we were staying at Big Creek, we met Paul and Brandy, a couple who had been there for a week and a half. Nice folks, spent some time talking with them. Paul has plans to be a river guide in the area. We needed a spatula, they loaned us theirs. They needed a few eggs, we helped them out.
The road around the north east end of the park is unpaved, empty, and scenic. A nice drive, but you need to be careful of oncoming traffic. Once we came out of the park and onto the paved highway again, it was apparent what a tourist trap the entire thing is. There is all sorts of park related touristy crap there. Much of it was closed because we were there in the off season. We had intended on taking the Balsam Mountain Road, but it was closed, so we turned around and continued on the Blue Ridge Parkway to the main south entrance.
At this point, we started seeing many more people than we had seen at Big Creek and the surrounding roads. It was a slow, scenic drive up to Newfound Gap. There was a fairly large number of people there, many didn't quite look like they had been camping in the park. The Appalachian Trail goes through there, and you could walk on it if that was your thing.
If you looked belong the crowds, Newfound Gap was quite pretty, though. You could watch the clouds come up the windward side of the mountain, and disappear as they headed down the leeward side. All of the foliage at the top had been coated one one side with ice crystals, and as the sun shown, they were melting and falling off the branches. It was quite a sight.
We headed down the windward side of the mountain, and eventually came out of the clouds. We wanted to see Rainbow Falls and Grotto Falls, so we headed to Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. As it turns out, you need to go outside the park boundaries, through Gatlinburg, and back into the park again to get on the trail.
The trail was fairly difficult, and there were a number of cars in the parking lot. Except one couple, we were the last ones on the trail. Several thousand feet of elevation later, we finished the trail and Emily rediscovered a pain in her knee. The sun was setting, so we skipped Grotto Falls and headed to Elkmont campground. Though they had half of it closed, there was plenty of room for everyone to spread out as desired. The stars were nice that night.
The next morning we went to Laurel Falls. At this point it started becoming apparent that the park was getting a little crowded. The path to the Falls was paved, so it was a bit easier on Em's knee. The parking lot was almost full, and there were many people on the trail. The trek to the falls was a bit over a mile, so it wasn't difficult, but it approached the attention span limit of many on the trail. At the falls, there is a ledge for people to stand on in front of the falls. The ledge was rather crowded, and had large yellow (obnoxious) signs warning of the edge of the ledge. Going down was similar to going up, but more people. At the trailhead, people were blocking the road and creating columns of cars.
We continued on to Cades Cove picnic area. There were a good number of people there, also. Keeping in mind that we were there in the middle of the week in what I would expect to be the off season, I would have expected less people there. But as I recall, the picnic area didn't have any annoying people in it, so no problem there.
From there, we went on the Cades Cove Loop Road. Cades Cove is a large meadow nestled between the mountains. It's frequented by deer, turkey, coyote, and other wildlife. (But if you just want to see deer, maybe you should tour any given pasture in Northern Wisconsin. There was always someone blocking the road to view deer...) The loop road runs through a number of old settlements in the area, and other scenic views. We hiked down to view Abrams Falls, and again we were some of the last people on the trail. From there we headed to camp at the Cades Cove campground.
The campground was fairly open and "urban", with a few generators running and no particularly good campsites. It wasn't near full, but just as well. Of the three campgrounds that we stayed at, I liked it the least. Maybe the section that was closed would have been better, but it is hard to say. The snow that night was an improvement to the scenery though.
In the morning, I had wanted to drive the Parson Branch Road around to the Abrams Creek or the Lone Rock campgrounds, but the Parson Branch Road was closed due to washout or some such. Because the weather wasn't getting any better, neither was Em's knee, and we both had work to do, we decided to head out.
But first, we lapped Cades Cove again while there was snow on everything and fewer people around. As far as I'm concerned, everything is better with a dusting of snow and fewer people, so I would recommend an early morning tour if you are up to it.
After that, we headed out via the Rich Mountain Road, which was scenic, but we were driving in a clound. I got the impression that it was not as scenic as the unpaved road in far east of the park.
In conclusion I would say that the park is fairly scenic, but gets too much traffic. Judging by the number of people that I saw coming up the Big Creek Trail on Tuesday, I would guess that some of the hiking trails get fairly "crowded" during the summer, and if you are looking to get away from people, you might be better off looking at state parks or the more remote areas of the park. The surrounding towns seemed like 95% tourist trap (now with more blinking lights!), which I found annoying. The park itself is quite scenic, but after spending time out west as a child, I still have a difficult time calling them "Mountains". I was also rather disappointed with the number of road closures. I am not sure why the Balsam Mountain Road was closed, I'm sure that there wasn't too much snow too plow.
If I were to go again, I would bring all of our backpacking gear and spend as much time away from the main roads and trails as possible. Most of the attractions were part of a larger trail, were you could hike in through a "back route" and leave the same way, avoiding most of the crowds altogether. I thought that the backcountry campsites that we saw looked reasonably maintained, and would be nice when the weather was accommodating.
Cades Cove is worth visiting on some frosty morning, though. I would highly recommend being one of the first people there.
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