Clingmans Dome

Clingmans Dome towers over the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains as the highest point in both the national park and the state of Tennessee. The mountain holds an ancient allure--the Cherokee treasured it, as did early settlers, and it captivates throngs of visitors today. Scarred by logging, invasive species and modern pollution, the mountain endures. Through lush narratives and fascinating detail, author Marci Spencer presents the natural and human history of this iconic destination, including Senator Thomas Clingman's 1858 journey to measure the mountain and the 1934 birth of the park.

Presents a guide to hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for families, organized by park region with maps and driving directions to the trail heads.

With 500,000 acres of land, it's hard to know where to start in this majestic national park. This fully updated edition of the popular guide eases the process for novice and veteran hikers alike. Comprehensive and compact, the book profiles 31 day-hikes, both one-way and loop, and 10 overnight hikes. Each profile includes a detailed description, maps and trailhead directions, and a trail summary that rates the difficulty, solitude, and scenery of each hike while outlining significant sites along the way. Destinations include the Little Greenbrier Trail to Walker Sisters Place, one of the last working pioneer homesteads in the Smokies, and the remote and stunning Hyatt Ridge Loop. Easily carried in a backpack, this book has hikes suitable for anyone who prefers vacationing on the trail rather than behind another car.

32 hikes in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Complete with elevation profiles, topo maps, itineraries.

* If you're heading to the Smokies, you'll need this guidebook! * All the trails, camping information, and best attractions for visitors of Great Smoky Mountain National Park This guidebook offers a mix of day hikes and overnight backpacking trails, and expanded natural history and background information on the Smoky Mountains, making it the most complete guidebook to the region. Divided into sections covering Tennessee and North Carolina, the guide is arranged so that all of the Tennessee trails can be done with a link, via the Newfound Gap Road, to the North Carolina trails and vice versa. All trails are grouped by access point, and each hiking description includes mileage, elevation change, difficulty rating, camping information, cautions, links to other trails, and attractions. Special lists cover the best waterfalls, stands of old-growth forest, historic structures, wildflower spots, and mountain views. Additional chapters feature information on geology, flora and fauna, park history, and more.

The author's journal as she backpacked the Appalachian Trail in 2004. Starting alone from Springer Mountain Georgia, she travels over 2000 miles to reach Mount Katahdin Maine six months later. Danie Martin is a librarian now living in Philadelphia. - from jacket text.

The Best Short Hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains Kenneth Wise and James Andrews Located astride the Tennessee-North Carolina border, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park contains more than one hundred trails that trace eight hundred miles of rugged terrain. This fact is certain to bewilder any newcomer who might be eager to explore the Park's backcountry but is unsure where to start. This book, intended as a beginner's guide to hiking the Smokies, offers lively, informative descriptions of twenty-two trails that can be completed in a day or less. For anyone who has yet to discover the beauty of the Smokies, the highest North American mountains east of the Mississippi, the trails described here offer a splendid introduction. Scenic overlooks at Mount Le Conte, Clingmans Dome, Gregory Bald, and other peaks are included along these pathways, as are some of the well-known waterfalls of the Park, such as Laurel Falls, Rainbow Falls, and Ramsay Cascades. In addition to vital data about the length of the trail, its elevation gain, and "how to get there," each trail description is packed with interesting facts and Smoky Mountain lore. Detailed maps are also included. In their introduction, the authors provide a brief overview of the park's history as well as useful tips for novice hikers. The Authors: Kenneth Wise, an administrator at the University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville, has hiked in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for more than twenty years. He is the author of Hiking Trails of the Great Smoky Mountains: A Comprehensive Guide. James Andrews,a partner in the firm of Andrews, Hudson & Wall, P.C., has hiked the Park trails for more than a decade. He is the coauthor, with Wise, of The Best Overnight Hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains.