{"id":2078,"date":"2024-04-20T00:51:21","date_gmt":"2024-04-20T00:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/?p=2078"},"modified":"2024-04-21T00:58:25","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T00:58:25","slug":"cades-cove-campground-great-smoky-mountains-national-park-tennessee-april-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/?p=2078","title":{"rendered":"Cade\u2019s Cove campground, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee. April 2024."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After leaving Huntsville, Alabama, we headed into some very pretty, green deciduous forests. First off some NARROW crazy state highways, but finally back on I40. So many colors of green since these trees are just leafing out and it rained – beautiful! We passed through Tennessee and then a quick touch through Georgia and then back to Tennessee. Then we headed southeast to get to Maryville and Townsend, Tn. We stayed in Cade\u2019s Cove campground inside the park. Almost the entire way was green forest but as we got to the middle of Tennessee it did start to look more agricultural, more cattle and pig farms. You can envision how hard it was to clear this land to grow pastures away from the trees. We liked the campground aside from the fact that we were in a loop that allowed generators, and boy did people run them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cade\u2019s Cove is a valley surrounded by the Great Smoky Mountains. It is about 1,000 ft elevation and basically was part of the early settlement region in the area. We went to Maryville to do laundry and also happened to find Bruster\u2019s ice cream- they had a store near one of the apartments Cherie lived in in Atlanta. Good times. And very tasty. We also had dinner one night in Townsend- a place called Peaceful Side Social Brewery and Kitchen. And it turns out, creamery. What a truly cool place, and again very tasty food. Townsend is in what is referred to as Peaceful Valley, which is what the original Cherokee tribes called it. That was before they were marched out on the Trail of Tears to the Oklahoma territory. Somewhere around 40-50 members of the tribe managed to escape the forced march and hid out in the mountains for over 30 years without being discovered. They were given some land that borders the park and there is a town called Cherokee right on the Blue Ridge parkway. We didn\u2019t get there since it was on the far side of the park from us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Just so many greens everywhere!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like most national parks, Smoky Mountains is big and requires a lot of driving to get around. We didn\u2019t get to the northernmost areas but we did make it to Clingman\u2019s Dome which is the highest point in the range. There is a structure there that on a clear day allows you to see into 7 different states! It wasn\u2019t clear the day we made the hike which was probably good for me- 600 ft almost straight up in a half mile. At altitude. I thought I might pass out once but we very slowly made it up. There were two sisters walking up whom we passed, at least late 70s, heavily using walking sticks who had been there before, so I couldn\u2019t quit!! Then at the top, it was so high I could barely move. I wish I was braver about heights but nope. I did manage to grimace for a selfie and we headed back down. Down is faster, but hard on the knees. That trail was just damn steep!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why oh why did I go up there? Didn\u2019t even look to see if I could see the three visible states!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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It is sort of a smile?!?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My favorite part of the GSM was the Cade\u2019s Cove loop- an 11 mile drive through some early settlement areas (old churches and a grist mill) and the home to at least 5 black bears. And a coyote, white tail deer, lots of turkeys, a cottontail and a Barred owl. Probably more but that\u2019s all we saw in 4 loops around the cove. It is a single lane almost all of the loop and the bear jams get pretty massive! The first evening we mostly saw a coyote and the mama bear with cubs way back in the trees. And had to laugh at how excited people were to see wild turkeys (come by any time y\u2019all cuz we got those daily in our backyard!). The next morning we saw a good sized male bear (they are 100-200 pounds smaller than our black bears) just crunching black walnuts right on the side of the road. We got a primo spot right across from him in the junction spot with a closed road. It was amazing to see him just smash a walnut shell with his molars, and then spit out the shells. I think we were there about 40 minutes total, just hogging up the perfect placement. Oops. Then as we traveled the rest of the loop, we saw some deer and the owl. That afternoon after trying to die on Clingman\u2019s dome trail, we saw the bear sow and her 3 cubs ( 14-15 month olds) at the same walnut tree, just munching on those walnut shells. The cubs could crunch them, very loudly, but had some issues spitting out the shells. We did find an almost white turkey hen in a field which was pretty interesting. And we finally got to the visitor\u2019s center and walked through the old lumber buildings and the gristmill. Interesting to see how innovative these people were to stay alive and well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is the male pulling walnut shells from the ground<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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There are so many streams everywhere. Lots of water here; probably why it is so green!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mama and her 3 cubs digging up and crunching black walnuts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Looking down over the cove<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The water wheel still turns the grinding stones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our last day we decided to go to Laurel\u2019s waterfalls, along with the rest of the park, it seemed. We had to park a quarter mile from the trail and go uphill to the trailhead. Not a good start for me! Then as we are walking up, a bus of MIDDLE SCHOOLERS gets off the bus to go up the trail. They were faster than us at least. And the trail was again – up but not quite as steep. 450 feet in 1.2 miles. Gaaa\u2026. And not as much altitude but very sunny. But I made it (yes, so did Dave!) \ud83e\udd23, and it was pretty. It made us realize how truly spoiled we are in California. All that hiking and it was a small Sierra waterfall, basically. Yosemite falls anyone? Also, we are spoiled because we\u2019ve seen so much beautiful country already. But, we made it back down and naturally made another loop around Cade\u2019s Cove!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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More of a smile after this hike!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All in all a fun trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with a good campground and lots of bears! Don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll ever get back here and I\u2019m glad we came! As always, link to Dave\u2019s pictures for much better shots of what I have here taken with just my phone!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dave\u2019s Pictures<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After leaving Huntsville, Alabama, we headed into some very pretty, green deciduous forests. First off some NARROW crazy state highways, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2078"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2121,"href":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078\/revisions\/2121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.murbook.family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}