2019 Tarn's Great Smoky Mountains National Park Trip: Wednesday, November 6, 2019

It was a short (about 4 minutes) drive from our hotel to enter the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Our 1st stop was the place with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park sign. We took photos at this spot. Then, we drove to Oconaluftee Visitor Center to get information regarding hiking trails in this national park. They did have a nice map to show trails including Andrew Bald Trail.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park sign

The route to the trail head of Andrew Bald Trail is a major road between NC and Tennessee. The road is very curly and have a lot of traffic. Therefor, it took us about 1 hour to get there. On the way, we stopped several places to take photos of the Great Smoky Mountains and it’s fall foliage. The Smokies are named for the blue mist that always seems to hover around the peaks and valleys. The Cherokee called them shaconage, (shah-con-ah-jey) or “place of the blue smoke”. From one of the overlook site, we can view it clearly and understand why it is called smoky.

Smoke on top of Great Smoky Mountains

After we got to the trail head of Andrew Bald Trail, we had to circle around to find a parking spot. We were lucky to find one right away.

The first itinerary item was hiking up to the observation tower at the top of Clingmans Dome. At 6,643 feet, Clingmans Dome is the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It is the highest point in Tennessee, and the third highest mountain east of the Mississippi. The observation tower on the summit of Clingmans Dome offers spectacular 360° views of the Smokies and beyond for visitors willing to climb the steep half-mile walk to the tower at the top.

Observation Tower

After we got back to the parking lot, it took us a little effort to find the start point of Andrew Bald Trail. It is a 3.5 miles round trip, 899 ft elevation gain trail with difficulty rating of 5.30.

Once we got on the trail, we found this is a very well maintained trail with up/down and clear marked trail. For someone likes to hike, this is a very nice trail. It offers variety of ups and downs, and the forest along the trail is beautiful. With the fall foliage, it offers even more beautiful sceneries. It took us about one hour to hike up to the top along with many photo stops.

Well Maintained Andrew Bald Trail

0.7 miles to Andrew Bald

After we got onto the top, we found a flat area on the top of the hill. With trees around it, there isn’t much of WOW factors to reward you for the long hike as we did, It was sort of a disappointment at the end point. However, we still like the hiking trail very much.

On the top of Andrew Bald

When we got down back to the trail head, it was about 2:40pm, therefore we just headed back to Cherokee. On the way passing the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, we found a lot of elks eating grass in the field next to the road. We stopped like many other visitors and took quite a few of pictures.