It’s that time of year again. Temps start dropping and excellent backpacking begins. One of my favorite places to backpack is in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Last year, my friend Richard and I embarked on a simple but challanging one way trail from Elkmont to Cades Cove. If you are looking for a Fall exposure, this is the place you want to hike. With over 9,000,000 million visitors a year, the Smoky Mountain National Park can be very popular in the Fall.
The timing of fall color season depends upon many variables, making it virtually impossible to predict the exact dates of “peak” colors in advance. Last year, we went in the middle of October.
- Image by dustydean via Flickr
The 32 mile one way trip starts out at Little River Trailhead in Elkmont. Elmont can be reached by taking the access road (Little River Road) from the Sugarlands Visitor Center near Gatlinburg. There are signs so don’t panic. You will need a permit to park in Elkmont. The Little River Trailhead starts at the back of the campground or in the rear of the road in Elkmont itself. (again, signs)
2.3 miles down the Little River Trail to Cucumber Trail. This starts your way to Cades Cove. You will follow the Cucumber trail to Meigs trail. Camp at #19 and you will have done about 8 miles. Day two will keep you on Meigs trail until it turns into Lumber Ridge. Stop at the Smoky Mountain Institue for lunch and hike about 2 miles to see Spruce Flat Falls. After lunch, Lumber Ridge eventually turns into West Prong. There you can camp at #18. You are almost done. Day three is a short uphill to Anthony Creek trail, down to Cades Cove. It’s a steep down hill. See my video report about the trail.
Smoky Mountain 3 Day
Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d102073a-5769-4b3c-8be9-dcb7e3b2f879)
Feel free to contact me at any time. Started Backpacking in 2003 and have never looked back. My all time favorite hike was last April when I hiked the Sycamore Wilderness Canyon. No trails, no signs, just wilderness and a 3,000 foot steep drop into the Canyon. I ran out of water my third day. Why? There was no water in the Canyon. You can check out my video on the “backpacker.tv” page. Thanks for dropping by.
[...] After a year, I finally put together a video of the hike Richard and I went on a last year. The video is on the left top page. Didn’t have much video to work with so it’s pretty much just a video slideshow with brilliant narration. You can see the full trip report here [...]