Dirt Highways

If you open your windows on the Old Cataloochee Turnpike in the summertime you will smell innumerable wildflowers and hear, just beyond the rumble of the gravel under your tires, the distant sound of Cataloochee Creek at the bottom of a narrow valley.

The old dirt road is now mainly used to access Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but if you’re not in a hurry it still serves its older purpose—connecting rural mountain communities in North Carolina and Tennessee. In fact, if you know where to look, there are still a surprising number of unpaved roads that will take you from one tiny Appalachian town to another, and occasionally from one state to another. Max Patch Road also crosses the Tennessee-North Carolina Line, and further south you can use Burrells Ford Road to cross from Rabun County, Georgia to Oconee County, South Carolina.

The Old Cataloochee Turnpike begins at Cove Creek Road near Waynesville, North Carolina. An ominous sign at the border to the park warns travelers that there will be absolutely no cell service where they’re going, and camping reservations should be made online before leaving civilization. Following the turnpike can be tricky, even with a map, because not all forks in the road are clearly marked. One fork is especially confusing—the sign offers the option of Cataloochee, on the left, or Cosby, Tennessee, on the right. The Turnpike actually continues on the righthand option, but the side road down to Cataloochee is still worth a trip, according to recent visitors Hannah and Jared Eichorn.

“My wife was interested in seeing kind of the history of the Cataloochee,” said Jared Eichorn.

“And it paid off,” Hannah Eichorn added. “We saw this amazing elk.”

Elk were reintroduced into the park in 2001. According to the National Park Service, they were once common in the area but were killed off by hunters in the late 1700s.

The Eichorns came to learn about the history of Cataloochee on a road trip from their home in Michigan. They stopped to visit the Palmer Place, a bright yellow dogtrot cabin that dates back to 1860. Before it was acquired by the Park Service, Cataloochee was one of the most populous farming communities in the region, and even boasted a modest tourist trade with local farmers renting out rooms to visiting fishermen.  According to the park service, approximately 1,200 people had to leave Cataloochee when the park was established.

Like the Palmer house, the Cataloochee Turnpike was completed in the 1860s and was the first wagon-accessible road through the Smokies. According to “Footsteps of the Cherokees” by Vicki Rozema, the gravel road closely follows the Cataloochee Trail, an old Cherokee route connecting the Middle settlements with the Overhill towns. The Eichorns enjoyed exploring the old roads through the valley although they found some of the route challenging.

“We were trying to find a map of the place, but there wasn’t very much on the map that shows you where to go,” Hannah said. “It’s kind of like, I don’t really know where to go, or how to even get out of here.”

The Eichorns found the dirt roads well maintained and easy to navigate however.

“It’s a lot different, compared to where we’re from,” Jared said. “Just the back and forth, lots of switchbacks and things.”

Most of the 17-mile Turnpike runs through remote wilderness where encounters with other travelers are few and far between, but there are hiking trails along the way, including the Cataloochee Divide Trail on the North Carolina edge of the park, Hannah Hoglen Cemetery, and the Appalachian Trail. In places the Cataloochee route can be a little rough, with patches of bedrock jutting up from the gravel. This can make the road difficult for low clearance vehicles, but with low speeds and careful driving it’s still not impassible.

Although cell service is rarely available on the backroads of the Southern Appalachians, there are still ways to use a cell phone to make sure you’re on the right road. Paper maps might be even more reliable, but an online map downloaded for offline use can use GPS signals to show if your current location is on the route you’ve chosen, or straying off to the side.

The website gravelmap.com offers downloadable maps of a wide variety of gravel roads all over the world, but the website’s target audience is mostly cyclists, so further research can be necessary to plan a road trip. However, once you know that a specific dirt road route is accessible by car, a map of the route can be downloaded from gravelmap.com.

Touring by car or bicycle

County officials in rural areas can be helpful for figuring out which roads are accessible by car, and of those, which might require four-wheel-drive. Murray County, Georgia, has an extensive network of gravel Forest Service roads that are easily accessible by car.

“There are some cycle trails that are motorcycle or four-wheeler only, but all of our roads that would be listed on a map are either forest service or county roads [and] are accessible by vehicle,” said Tommy Parker, county manager of Murray County. “In winter times you may need a four-wheel-drive vehicle.”

Parker said that exploring the backwoods is quite popular with tourists, both by car and by bicycle.

“We have a state park on Fort Mountain that attracts folks,” Parker said. “There are very few dirt roads up there, but Grassy Mountain is U.S. Forest Service and there’s [some] wilderness areas that are closed to travel, except pedestrian and horse travel.”

Cell service on these roads is spotty, Parker added.

Western North Carolina and North Georgia both have a significant number of unpaved mountain roads. In North Carolina it’s possible to travel from rural Yancey County to McDowell County by way of Curtis Creek Road, or from Pensacola to Barnardsville by way of the unpaved section of N.C. 197. However, Haywood County (home of Waynesville, and Clyde) has significantly more unpaved mileage. In Georgia, some of the best backroads exploration is in Rabun County and Murray County.

In South Carolina, Pickens County and Oconee County both have miles and miles of dirt roads. In Tennessee, gravel mileage is concentrated in Anderson County, Monroe County, Cocke County (home of Del Rio) and Polk County. Western Virginia has several counties with longer gravel routes, including Roanoke County, Allegheny County, Bland County, Botetourt County, Wythe County, Giles County, Tazewell County, Grayson County, and many more. In West Virginia proper, there are extensive gravel roads in Pendleton County, Pocahontas County, Hampshire County, Tucker County, and others.

Exploring the mountains via dirt roads can be tricky. Old N.C. 105 in Nebo, North Carolina winds around behind Lake James and alongside scenic Linville Gorge, but although it offers unique and surprisingly close views of the mountains around the gorge, it can also be quite rough and steep in some spots. While it is used by many motor vehicles, I found it inaccessible for a two-wheel-drive Toyota Prius.

Max Patch Road, which links Joe, an unincorporated community southwest of Hot Springs, North Carolina, with Del Rio, Tennessee, is smoothly graded but in some areas overlooks steep drop offs that can make passing oncoming traffic a challenge. But Max Patch Road stays popular with tourists because it offers access to Max Patch, a scenic bald mountain on the Appalachian Trail. 

“I just tell people if they’re up there when the sun’s setting they get to watch it go right into the Mississippi River,” said James Ferguson, whose business caters to tourists on the North Carolina end of the road.

You can’t see the actual water of the Mississippi from the mountain top, but Max Patch offers a view of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Unaka Range, the Great Balsam Mountains and the Black Mountains.

“They’re just in awe of it, most of the people that have been there,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson owns Ferguson Supply and Fines Creek Cafe, a 100-year-old restaurant in Clyde, North Carolina. He said quite a few tourists stop by regularly.

“I’m probably the closest cafe to Max Patch,” he said. “Everybody loves (Max Patch)—they just think it’s fabulous.”

There are other nearby restaurants and gas stations, and at the other end of the line Del Rio, also has a number of businesses offering amenities to travelers.

Amenities near Old Cataloochie Turnpike are scarce. Gas stations on either end of the route frequently close fairly early in the evening. However, the North Carolina side is fairly close to Interstate 40. There are campsites available inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and there are a number of private campgrounds outside the park, including some on the Tennessee end that advertise more comfortable “glamping” options. There are hotels and restaurants in Cosby, Tennessee.

Getting lost without cell service, running out of gas, and showing up at the last restaurant for 50 miles five minutes after closing are always a risk with dirt highway adventures, but for those who want a road trip off the beaten path there are always unexpected vistas and discoveries. You might even see an elk.