Most any time of year can be an excellent time to hike Cataloochee Divide, which generally marks the southeastern boundary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The divide is one of the lofty ridges that separate idyllic Cataloochee Valley from the rest of the world. It also yields fine views of soaring mountains both inside and outside the park, including brilliant fall color during October.
Cataloochee Divide Trail begins at Cove Creek Gap, where old N.C. 284 enters the Smokies park. The trail initially hugs the park boundary, which is delineated in places by a battered split-rail fence and barbed wire. The path itself is easy on the feet overall, with few rocky or muddy places. With trail elevations ranging from about 4,000 feet to slightly above 5,000, there’s also not a great deal of climbing or descending until the fourth mile of hiking.
After about a half hour of pleasant walking from the gap, you reach a small clearing to the right of the trail that affords what is surely one of the East’s finest wilderness views. None of the vast, mountainous terrain viewed from here is inhabited by humans; the heavily forested land all lies within the park. Especially prominent are the 5,647-foot Spruce Mountain, looming high along the mighty Balsam Mountain Range, and towering Mount Sterling Ridge. You also can see a small piece of Cataloochee Valley, more than 1,500 feet lower in elevation than this lookout. Before the park was established in 1934, the valley was home to well over 1,000 residents. The Cherokee had a name for the waves and waves of mountains you see from the lookout: Ga-da-lu-tsi, loosely translated as “standing in a row.” Over time, European-American settlers transformed the name to Cataloochee.
Soon you begin a significant descent to the trail’s next notable landmark. Panther Spring Gap lies slightly more than two miles out, where a private dirt road parallels the boundary. Legend has it that many moons ago a panther dragged a young girl, alive and screaming, across the gap into Cataloochee Valley. Although there are still occasional reports of panthers in Cataloochee and elsewhere in the Smokies, the animal is generally thought to be extirpated from these mountains, gone the way of the bison.
In another mile or so there’s a clearing and a sturdy wooden shelter on the privately owned side of the fence line. From this spot, there’s an unobstructed view of Purchase Knob, looming above the divide at an elevation of 5,086 feet. At this point, Cataloochee Divide Trail begins climbing in earnest, briefly becoming steep, muddy and overgrown in places. It’s a definite contrast to the first three miles of hiking.
Soon you reach a short side path providing access to today’s destination: the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center, reached via a short side path from Cataloochee Divide Trail. The center and its surrounding 535 acres are part of the Smokies park because of the exceptional generosity of Kathryn McNeil and Voit Gilmore, a San Francisco couple who donated the land and their former vacation home to the federal government in 2000. No doubt they could have made a large fortune by selling the vast tract to a developer who in turn could offer lofty homesites to affluent home buyers. Near the center are a webcam and weather/air-quality monitoring station, as well as the Ferguson Cabin, the highest-elevation pioneer cabin remaining in the park. In the immediate distance is Purchase Knob; farther afield, well outside the park across Interstate 40, is the nearly mile-high Sandymush Bald.
The handsome learning center and its beautiful setting are well worth effort to reach them. But even if you hike only as far as the first lookout or to the wooden shelter, you’ll find Cataloochee Divide Trail to be one of the Smokies’ finest paths.
About the author: Ben Anderson is author of Smokies Chronicle: A Year of Hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (blairpub.com).
Go for a hike
- Trail: Cataloochee Divide
- Trailhead: Cove Creek Gap, where Cataloochee Road (old N.C. 284) enters GSMNP
- Length: 9.0 miles round trip, if you hike to the learning center and back
- Difficulty: Moderately strenuous