Cataloochee Valley

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park stretches across 800 square miles, with nearly 95 percent of its land covered in forest. These ancient mountains, which are among the oldest on Earth, are built from rocks more than 200 million years old with their jagged peaks worn down into the soft, rounded ridges that are present today. These ridgelines are traversed by the Appalachian Trail which climbs to its highest point at Clingmans Dome (6,643 feet) and straddles the border of North Carolina and Tennessee in the park. From the ridges you will often see a distinctive blue haze that lingers over the valleys.  It is a natural mist that is created when plants release water vapor and organic compounds into the air which gives the area its trademark “Smoky” Mountains name.  Unfortunately, the majority of the people that visit the park never visit the backcountry and see some of the best wilderness in the Southeastern U.S.

This loop hike starts at the Pretty Hollow Gap trailhead 1.3 miles from the end of the Cataloochee Road at a site called Nellie (near a restored early 1900’s schoolhouse). The route climbs the Pretty Hollow Gap trail to the Mount Sterling Ridge and follows this trail east toward Laurel Gap Shelter. Here it picks up the Balsam Mountain Trail and follows it down to the Balsam Mountain Road for a lengthy road walk to the Balsam Mountain Campground (since the Polls Gap Trail is temporarily closed.) From the Campground, the route descends to Polls Gap and picks up the Rough Fork Trail that descends back to the terminus of the Cataloochee Road and wide open area that occasionally has elk or wild turkeys wandering in the field. In the last few miles of this thirty mile route, there are some historic homesteads (including the S.L. Woody house which sits on Rough Fork Creek).