Day 44, October 23, 2021

It was a frustrating day for us in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We were out and into the park just after 9 this morning and drove directly to Clingmans Dome near the center of the park road between Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Cherokee, North Carolina. The parking lot was already overflowing with cars backing up onto the entry road. We were fortunate to find someone pulling out of a space just as we took a lap around the parking lot.

But that’s as far as the good fortunes would go.

By the time we left Clingmans, cars were backed up for miles just to get to the parking lot — finding an open space would take hours.

Throughout the day it would only get worse. The parking lots for all of the main sites and for most of the overlooks were filled to capacity and cars lined the main road on both sides, many teetering, half on the road and half slanted into ditches. It was gridlock as bad you would see in a big city.

When we visited the Rocky Mountain National Park earlier in this trip, we had to obtain permits for specific entry times to help control the traffic. At Arches NP, the entry gates were closed when a specific number of cars entered each day. At Zion, no cars were permitted to enter the park — shuttles took visitors to all of the sites. Shuttles also were extensively used in the Grand Canyon NP.

All of our previously visited national parks on this trip — 10 in all — also charged a $35 entry free for each car. The Smokies NP is free with no entry fee and it has always been the most visited of our country’s national parks. Last year there were 12.1 million visitors in the Smokies. Yellowstone was the second most visited park with 3.8 million and Zion was third with 3.6 million.

The reason for no fee in the Smokies and a formula for the chaotic traffic: In 1930 the states of Tennessee and North Carolina funded the building of the Newfound Road that runs through the center of the park. When Tennessee transferred ownership of the road to the federal government, if stipulated “no toll or license fee shall ever be imposed to travel the road.” And so the traffic flows — bolstering in a major way the economies of neighboring Gatlinburg, Pidgeon Forge and Cherokee.

Enough with the soap box.

When we arrived at Clingmans Dome — the highest point in the Smokies at 6,643 feet — there was an amazing view of puffy clouds in the valleys below us, covering many of the surrounding lower mountains.

The rest of the day was spent battling traffic and pulling off to any overlook or trailhead where we could squeeze in the Roadtrek. It didn’t happen often.

Here are some images of those limited stops along the park road and also from Clingmans Dome:

Tomorrow we’re moving on to Ashville, North Carolina — a relatively short drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway. On the way, we’ll drive up through the Smokies once again, hoping for a parking space or two.