Newfound Gap & Clingmans Dome in the Smokies

A trip to Newfound Gap has often been compared to a drive from Georgia to Maine in terms of the variety of forest ecosystems you will experience. From Gatlinburg, you will climb 3,500 feet in 13 miles, ascending through cove hardwood, pine-oak, and northern hardwood forest to attain the evergreen spruce-fir forest at Newfound Gap.

Temperatures at the gap are usually at least ten degrees cooler than in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. From the parking area at Newfound Gap, you can straddle the state line between North Carolina and Tennessee or take a stroll on the Appalachian Trial, a 2,200 mile footpath.

Straddling the state line is the Rockefeller Memorial, built as a tribute to the Rockefeller Foundation for their donation of $5 million which helped Tennessee and North Carolina buy land for the park. Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the park at this spot in 1940.

Just past Newfound Gap is the seven-mile Clingmans Dome Road the climbs to within 1/2 mile of Clingmans Dome, the highest peak in the Smokies and third highest in the East (6,643'). From the parking area at the end of the road, take a 1/2 mile trail to a 45 foot observation tower at the "top of old Smoky."

On a clear day, the view stretches into seven states. On a cloudy, foggy day you will be lucky to see 45 feet below. Clingmans Dome Road is closed in the winter from December 1-March 31.

Information compliments of the National Park Service.