Smoky Mountain drives/trails

[B22-2023]

After the New Year I’m taking a road trip that will go through the Great Smoky Mountains. There are easy to find great highway drives there, but does anyone suggest good forest trails to get back in the woods, and some moderate to challenging 4x4 stuff to do over a day or two? Or for that is it better to use some of the off-roading parks I see listed on OnX? Thanks.

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[broadicustomworks]

A lot of the area is devastated still from the Hurricane. Some areas are recovering remarkably well, some almost normal, and some not much at all yet.
A lot of the known off-road routes (Hurricane Creek, Buzzard's Roost, Old 105) are damaged and closed indefinitely.
Parson's Branch I haven't heard about, but it is more western, out of Cades Cove to Deal's gap.
Best bet for keeping bad surprises down to a minimum is to stick to paid parks like Windrock for visits. It's right outside of Knoxville, and Prentice Cooper is right outside of Chattanooga.
Gulches is in SC, and Uwharrie here in NC will close Dec 15 and reopen April 1 or so.

 

[Night Horse]

Cohutta (in NE GA) and Cherokee Forests (SE TN) have a lot of fun forest service roads if that is of interest. Both are not far from the Smokies.

 

[Ford Motor Company]

After the New Year I’m taking a road trip that will go through the Great Smoky Mountains. There are easy to find great highway drives there, but does anyone suggest good forest trails to get back in the woods, and some moderate to challenging 4x4 stuff to do over a day or two? Or for that is it better to use some of the off-roading parks I see listed on OnX? Thanks.

We hope you have a safe and wonderful trip! We hope to see pictures of your adventure.

 

[Robs]

After the New Year I’m taking a road trip that will go through the Great Smoky Mountains. There are easy to find great highway drives there, but does anyone suggest good forest trails to get back in the woods, and some moderate to challenging 4x4 stuff to do over a day or two? Or for that is it better to use some of the off-roading parks I see listed on OnX? Thanks.

Check out the mid Atlantic BDR. its a trail ride from Damascus Virginia to the PA/NY border and is organized on their downloadable map into sections so you can do all or just a few of them depending on how much time you want to spend. I did 4 1/2 of the sections this past summer over 4 days and was very enjoyable combination of FS roads and county roads The downlaodable tracks offer waypoints for scenery, camping, gas and lodging. one of the sections goes right past the hotel where Dirty Dancing was filmed.

 

[B22-2023]

Thanks for this and other suggestions. Looks like a Feb or March trip and Gettysburg, PA is the main destination of this; MABDR takes us practically there.

Definitely doing a day at Windrock, then will do what is feasible of the MABDR. Weather will be a consideration.

I‘ve got plenty to research and plan now, thanks everyone.

 

[Rydfree]

Thanks for this and other suggestions. Looks like a Feb or March trip and Gettysburg, PA is the main destination of this; MABDR takes us practically there.

Definitely doing a day at Windrock, then will do what is feasible of the MABDR. Weather will be a consideration.

I‘ve got plenty to research and plan now, thanks everyone.

The wife and I will be staying at Windrock next week. I've never been, but several friends love it and go every year. Will see how it goes

 

[B22-2023]

The wife and I will be staying at Windrock next week. I've never been, but several friends love it and go every year. Will see how it goes

I’ve been watching a pretty cool Windrock site, the bleep jeep guy, and other than the crawling stuff that I skip he does a good job of mapping out that park and where to go in a moderate to more-built 4WD. It looks sick! Let us all know how it went.

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