Summer in the Great Smoky Mountains: Cades Cove

These meadows lie where the town and farms of Cades Cove once stood.

UPDATED: 2/5/2023

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One of our favorite parts of our trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was our visit to Cades Cove. (“Cades” is pronounced like the name “Kate” with the d sound replacing the t). The area was about 1 hour 40 minutes from where we were staying so it was a little bit of a trek but well worth it.

What is Cades Cove? A Ghost Town by any other name.

Cades Cove is a valley that had been frequented by Cherokee hunters and was settled in the 1820s by Europeans who built a community in the valley. About 100 years later, the states of Tennessee and North Carolina were purchasing land for what would become the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and Cades Cove was in the middle of the area. Some of the community sold their property willingly, others signed agreements whereby they could live out their lives on the land and that it would be granted to the national park posthumously, and other families fought the efforts in court.

Early morning sun bathes the meadows of Cades Cove.

Wild turkeys search for food in the grasses.

The paths through Cades Cove meander through both forest and meadow.

As the small remaining residents aged, fewer public institutions were needed and by the late 1940s, the school and post office had each closed. The last remaining resident, Kermit Caughron, finally died in 1999, remaining as a resident in Cades Cove up until shortly before his death. You can read more about his story here. It is hard to imagine watching a community you were born and raised in slowly die and turn into a tourist-infested, bumper-to-bumper zoo. And so as with anything with a complex history, Cades Cove left me with some mixed feelings.

This is neither the first nor last time that government entities decided to prioritize certain goals over the property rights of individuals. Any instance of eminent domain is an example of this. In fact, the building of the Blue Ridge Parkway, now so admired by many taking in the mid-Atlantic beauty, was the result of kicking people off their land and out of their family homes. As in most cases, those with the least resources are least able to fight these situations.

Inside the Methodist Church, one of the many churches still standing in Cades Cove.

Outside of the Methodist Church in Cades Cove.

What To Do and See in Cades Cove

Cades Cove has an 11-mile loop road encircling it, with a few cut-over streets in the middle. You can tour the one-way route by car, or better yet, bike it! This map shows the loop and the various buildings - churches, a school, homes - that are all standing as if stuck in time. The cemeteries at the churches are still used by family members with burials into the aughts. The car traffic during popular seasons is literally bumper-to-bumper and really isn’t a good way to explore the buildings along the way.

Instead, we researched other options and learned that during the summer season, the loop road is closed to car traffic up until 10am on Wednesdays and Saturdays and only usable by walkers or bikers. The park has bikes for rent. They are very, very basic bicycles - I don’t even think they had gears - but they fit the bill. They were not great bikes for what was a fairly hilly terrain (my legs screamed at me a few times) so if you have the ability to bring your own bike, that would be ideal. The bike rentals are, as of this writing, $7.50/hour. Check their site here for the latest, but they currently start rentals at 6:30am and say its not uncommon to be rented out by 7:30am. We woke up at something like 4:30am in order to make the drive, rent bikes, and ride the loop before the cars started at 10am but even so, they were getting low on bikes.

Absolutely stunning views can be seen in all directions as you walk or ride through Cades Cove.

Deer graze and keep a watchful eye on the strange wheeled creatures rolling by.

We found ourselves stopping along our ride so many times to just admire the beauty of nature.

There is a quiet and peaceful beauty in the Smoky Mountains. The aged and rounded mountains put off a very different feel compared to the younger and much more jagged peaks of the Rockies.

One extra advantage of the early morning is that it was relatively cool with humidity rising by the time we finished up. One word of advice: there is at least one spot that has caution signs and says people should walk their bikes down the steep incline - follow those signs. It was ridiculously steep (I was a rule follower and walked, Dustin rode slowly because he’s too cool for school), but it is apparently not uncommon for people to get seriously injured there. We hauled our big honker of a camera in a backpack, but it was quite uncomfortable and a pain to continually remove it and stow it in a backpack so if we were to go again, I’d rely on a smaller camera of the point-and-shoot variety.

We enjoyed seeing wildlife in the big, open meadows on the ride - anything from various birds to herds of deer (which we’re used to seeing at home but would be more interesting for those visitors not used to deer sightings).