This article begins at Townsend Tennessee on the border of the Great Smoky Mountains. I’ve already written articles on Alum Caves, Metcalf Bottoms and Tremont. My last article was Tremont.

The road leading to Tremont is just inside the National Park after leaving Townsend. At the first intersection after entering the National Park make a right turn toward Cades Cove.

The picnic area at Cades Cove is beautiful. It has a clear stream going around picnic area like a horseshoe with Great big rocks. It and the camping site are to the left just before entering the cove. One can rent bikes at the camp site. We’ve never checked into it, but they do have horse drawn hay rides just off of this same road.

After passing the road to the right, we entered the Cades Cove 11 mile loop. There is literature at the entrance of the cove, on the left side of the parking area.

There is a donation box here also. There is talk about running shuttles through the cove to decrease traffic. This may also be to raise more money for the park so this may provide extra incentive for contributing at the donation box.

One can usually see the horses in the first field to the left after passing the parking area. Recently we’ve seen lots of turkey in this field too.

We saw 13 bear on one single evening trip through Cades Cove a year ago, there are also many deer. We’ve seen a Pilate Woodpecker here on more than one occasion.

We’ve found that the best time to visit Cades Cove in early morning or late afternoon when it is cooler. The animals usually stay in the woods in the heat of the day.

It seems that people usually built their homes on outer circle which would be a beautiful setting and provide streams for their use. Most of the farmland was on the inside of the circle.

Just imagine how beautiful it was, yet it had to be rough living. Driving to town for supplies in sleds and wagons with horses, not like today. The cemeteries are filled with gravestones of women and children dying very young and whole families dying during the same time period.

Eddie’s mom spoke of granddad walking through these mountains in the winter with gunny sacks wrapped around his feet and then coming home with frostbite.

They’ve provided Hyatt Lane and Sparks Lane to cut across for those who don’t want to go around the full circle. Eddie saw the first deer.

Rich Mountain road on the right goes down the mountain into Townsend and is very winding and dangerous, especially late at night, although we’ve heard that there have been many black bear spotted on that side of the mountain.

Elijah Oliver Cabin trail has two separate entrances, they go in on separate sides of the creek and one should be certain to exit on the same trail they entered or they will have extra 8 tenths of a mile to walk to their vehicle.

On a previous visit we saw a beaver at the wooden bridge crossing about 3 tenths of a mile past the first Elijah Oliver trail head.

We took the second entrance to the Elijah Oliver Cabin trail. It is a gravel road to the right and marked for Abrams Falls. This road also has large pot holes so drive carefully here. The gravel road is 4 tenths of a mile to the parking lot.

Reminder: Security is important. Lock valuables in trunk at another location before parking the car at the trail, there are thieves who watch for careless hikers.

Also restrooms and restaurants ARE NOT easily found on these trails. We’ve not found one McDonalds on any of these trails.

After parking our car, we walked across the parking lot to the bridge. This is a beautiful spot with a bridge crossing the creek. The trail goes straight to get to Abrams Falls but we took a sharp right off of the bridge to go to Elijah Oliver’s cabin.

Abrams Falls, sign states that it is 2.5 miles and moderately difficult – 3-4 hour hike. Abrams Falls is beautiful but a strenuous walk. We walked it several years earlier and in places we had to pull ourselves up by branches. We managed OK, but would prefer something less strenuous.

Elijah Oliver Cabin trail (to the right) is a half mile; level ground along the stream that looked like a beaver had been at work. We walked Eddie’s 85 year young mother on this trail 3 years before she passed on and the only trouble we had was guiding her over the tree roots across the path.

One side of the stream is beautiful rushing water around the rocks, but the other side must be where the beaver dammed it up because looks more stagnate and is fuller, deeper, darker and still.

Arriving at Elijah Oliver Cabin, It is very interesting to see the layout of the buildings on their land. They kept the items cold in the stream above the house and build the building further downstream with the dirtiest animals furthest downstream.

As we returned, Eddie and I almost stumbled over a bear cub.

We ran into our first bear while walking on a trail in the Smoky Mountains in Cades Cove 9-21-2008. Eddie spotted the cub bear first and pulled me back to keep me from running into the bear. I backed away slowly, while Eddie pulled his camcorder out of his pocket and got a great video. The bear cub walked away from us and ran down into a ravine and then walked back up to the top of the ravine and began to climb a tree.

The pictures of the bear in the article above are part of Eddies Video. When Eddie started backing away from the bear, the bear started following Eddie until he made a movement toward the bear. Then Eddie kept backing up slowly away from the bear and slowly changing directions to discourage the bear from following him. The bear finally moved away from Eddie to the right of the trail and walked up over the mountain. Thank goodness mama bear never showed up.

9785 steps Elijah Oliver Cabin trail was 1785 Steps

After leaving here, we stopped at the half way point around the cove circle – John P. Cable Mill and there are bathrooms here.

On the second half of the cove circle we spotted a Buck Deer today.

10000 steps for Sunday 21^st

My next article will be on Grotto Falls which we walked on our last day in Smoky Mountains before leaving for home.

My Passion is Health and Wellness through Nutrition. I have successfully put cancer into remission without Chemotherapy, Radiation or Surgery.

Thank you. ~ Barbie