In this week's video I'm going to take you through Cades Cove and
Smoky Mountain National Park & show you what to expect if you plan on visiting
After visiting Tuckaleechee Caverns I couldn't help myself but take a drive through Cades Cove .
Now I have been here before it's a lovely part of the Smoky Mountain National Park it's the if you
come through Townsend it's a lot less crowded than coming through Gatlinburg, Gatlinburg is crazy!
So it's only 2 30 in the afternoon I'm gonna take a tour through Cades Cove come along now before I
go through caves cove I'm gonna stop here at the Smoky Mountain Heritage Center I believe it's a
museum- I'm gonna make a pit stop and I'm gonna see what they have in here to check out before we
make the drive. So this Heritage Museum is $10 to get in. It is privately owned non-profit and they
said when the road was widened back in the late 90s they came across remnants of an old Cherokee
village and so they have a lot of the history in here and a lot of history of the original settlers
that lived in this area now I don't have a ton of time and so I'm choosing to drive through Cade's
Cove instead of stop at this Heritage Center it is ten dollars to get in. If you are interested
in history I really recommend this stuff it looks like a beautifully well done museum.
Just for reference this is what summer time looks like at the park. jam packed with people it's
a big traffic jam so if you turn to the left you can go to gatlinburg we are gonna go to cades cove
there's gonna be cars and people in every direction all right caves cove here we go
Feeding wildlife is prohibited.
I just saw a sign that the abram falls trail is closed so it's a good thing that i wasn't
planning on doing that today and the case code scenic loop is closed at dusk and it is 11 miles
long it is a one way loop and for some reason it's closed on wednesdays to motor vehicles
so there's all kinds of signs here letting you know that situation so plan accordingly
the very beginning of cades cove there are always horses i'm going to stop and take a look
hi horseee... hi beautiful!
are you friendly? are you friendly horse or you're stirring up dust?
Now in this first meadow area of cades cove look for wildlife
you start with the horses and then in the field I have on several occasions
seen well turkeys out in the field so keep an eye on that they're pretty small
there's usually you've got some pretty serious wildlife photographers in the area
so you can usually see them stopped if you see a car stopped with a photographer get out and look
so the next stop is john Oliver cabin. I came up on it pretty fast and I missed the turn off it's
a pretty long walk up the hill to an old cabin in the area I'm given the heat and humidity i'm not
going to walk up there today I'm going to dig out some old pictures from the last time I was here to
show you guys and I'll have to look up some of the history if you've got time and it's comfortable
temperature it would be a nice walk just for reference here's the cabin pardon the car noise
way up there you gotta walk up this meadow up this hill to this historical cabin now as you
can see this is a loop around this big beautiful meadow with the smoky mountains in the backdrop
now can you imagine how beautiful this would be in the fall when the leaves are changing color
now for some reason today the air quality is quite bad so the views aren't as pretty as it could be
but this just gives you an idea of the scenery here at cades cove so there's a turn off for
an old baptist church you have to drive down a different road for about a quarter mile so
i didn't make that turn but right off the main drag there is a stop here for an old methodist
church so i did make this stop and we're going to take a look at this cute historical church
really surprised to see the old pews still in this historical church and you
can see it's elevated by just stones surprised that it stays balanced
now next to this church there's an old cemetery where you can pay your respect
look at how young this person was in his 20s when he died
or i'd love to visit this old gravesite at night look at these tiny little stones
just a little tiny marker i don't believe it says who's buried there
not even a marking just a rock it's all they could afford back in the day 1894 to 1913.
honestly i'm not expecting to see any bears today because of the heat
it's super hot heat of the summer it's been one of the hottest weeks out here and so if i were a
bear i wouldn't be out in the meadow in the full sun i would be in the forest getting some shade
um but maybe i'll be surprised but i'm not expecting to see any today
also note that they do give you opportunities to leave early if you start this loop
and you feel like you can't make the entire loop this is the second turn off now where you can
get out of cage cove a little faster if you're just not feeling it today here's another church
let's see if i can missionary baptist church
if you're really serious about wildlife viewing i would recommend bringing binoculars
as you can see here in a second i'll show you these meadows are really large
and i'll bet there's animals way far away that i just can't pick up especially
by myself and i'm driving so i can only spend so much time looking for the wildlife
i'm not exactly sure how far along the loop i am but there is a stop called cable mill
there's an old historic mill here and a little general store and a restroom
so we're going to stop here for a quick visit
now i've been in this general store before they have it's a typical it's
actually like a gift shop for really lots of books lots of information postcards trinkets
and down here down the hill is the mill that's what i'll check out for you up ahead it looks like
we've got a historical home it says in the early 1900s these were family farms all in this valley
and most people in this area made use of the mill the country store
and the blacksmith shop so they've kind of recreated that here in this environment i
don't know if this is original it says cable mill the mill is the only building on its original site
the blacksmith shop the house and the barn have all been reconstructed
so i was here probably in 2018 and they used to have somebody in that mill kind of showing you
how it used to operate sorry bugs and uh it's all shut down now i'm guessing that's because of kovid
they probably shut down that exhibit i'm not really sure traffic has come to almost
a standstill so i'm wondering if there are bears up ahead either that or there's just a big crowd
i do see there's a historical cabin here so we may just be dealing with traffic
cage cove is full of old homesteads and family farms and cabins
i didn't stop at all of them but this is tipped in place
it's a pretty nice home and you can actually go inside i'll take you inside in just a
minute you can see the traffic just to get an idea just a constant flow of traffic
and i found right behind the house a little path i'm gonna walk up here and have a few minutes of
solitude it's interesting that this is a pretty quiet forest when i was in the city the cicadas
were so incredibly loud but this forest in the smoky mountains is pretty quiet other than the
traffic going through cades cove i just don't hear the same amount of cicadas in this area
i just heard one that was it do you see how small this doorway is
this one's a little bigger but still still pretty tiny
these old cabins have really stood the test of time
and you can smell the wood i don't know if it's made of cedar
that i'm not sure of so smoky mountain national park is free of charge i would recommend if you
do cage cove and you really want to learn all the history there's probably a visitor center
where they sell information booklets i don't have one so i don't know all the history right now
while i'm here at the site of all these places but there's numbered as you drive along and so
i'm sure there's a booklet for purchase that would explain the history behind each one of the sites
so here's the thing guys the amount of time it takes to get through cades cove is going to be
very variable there is a car up ahead that has been driving about five miles an hour it is a
one-way one-lane road and there is a huge line of cars behind me let's see if i can show you
okay so if you get stuck like that it's gonna take you a while to get through
doesn't look like we're gonna see any bears today what'd i tell you traffic jam as far as i can see
this was a serious traffic jam and i see people getting out of the car
so i'm sure it's a bear sighting this time i mean it
maybe not somebody directing traffic
i think it might be park rangers saying get the heck out of here there we go
so the rangers were nice enough to let a group of us stop they were kind of monitoring it for
a while and now they've suddenly said the area's closed i think they're gonna tell the
bear to leave i don't know if they're worried about the amount of people that stop to see it
they're like yeah the bears got something i don't know my zoom lens actually started acting up right
when i was trying to capture the bear i did manage to get a photograph i tried to get some video
and it was extremely unstable because i didn't have my tripod and i was holding it at the zoom
so i'll do my best to stabilize it and put it in the video but that's the excitement of cage cove
i didn't think we were gonna see one today and we got lucky
all right that's really the end thanks for watching please subscribe catch you next time