Carla Passmore photo
Mingus Mill near the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Winter can be a fine time to hike in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, even for those of us who favor warmer weather. Kindly note use of the word can, as the season is often not so fine for hiking in the park. But most years, the Smokies’ lower elevations do feature several dry days in winter when high temperatures push toward 50 or above and trails are generally free of snow and ice, if not mud. Such are the relatively mild days an antsy warm-weather hiker seizes with a certain urgency.
Mingus Creek Trail is a good path to consider hiking in benign—or perhaps even not so benign—winter weather. The trailhead, at the far end of Mingus Mill parking area just north of Oconaluftee Visitor Center in Cherokee, North Carolina, is easy to reach by vehicle whenever Newfound Gap Road is open. (The parking lot also is accessible from Oconaluftee when the road is gated at Smokemont Campground a couple of miles farther north, as it often is in winter.) As for the trail’s difficulty, the first part of the path climbs only moderately from an initial elevation of slightly more than 2,000 feet.
The hike begins across the creek from the historic Mingus Mill, constructed in 1886 and restored twice since the park was established in 1934. Using a cast-iron turbine instead of a waterwheel to custom grind corn, wheat and rye, the mill produced large amounts of cornmeal and flour during its heyday. Today the nonprofit Great Smoky Mountains Association operates the mill seasonally in partnership with the Smokies park. Although the mill is closed during the winter, you can still get a close look from the outside by walking a short distance, crossing Mingus Creek on a sturdy bridge near the parking area.
As you follow an old roadbed from the trailhead, you’ll notice that even in winter the route reveals more than drab palettes of brown and gray. Mosses, ferns and rhododendrons add splashes of green along the way, as do several pine trees scattered among the hardwoods on a ridge to the north.
After walking slightly more than a mile, you reach a junction where a sign simply stating “Cemetery” directs you to the right. Although the main trail stretches another 4½ miles in climbing Mingus Ridge, in winter I recommend the cemetery spur, the path that follows Mingus Creek itself. Less than a mile from the junction, at a massive boulder, another cemetery sign directs hikers to again turn right.
Mingus Cemetery is situated high above the creek, on a knoll with lovely wintertime views of nearby Mingus Ridge. Of the 40 or so gravesites, all humbly marked by fieldstones, only one—that of a Polly Mathis (1888-1934)—bears a name that is readable. The setting offers an especially nice spot for reflection on a quiet winter day.
If the weather looks fine and you’re inclined to extend your hike, you can turn right when you return to the trail junction and head farther up Mingus Creek Trail. And if you’re especially ambitious with plenty of remaining daylight, you’ll reach Mingus Ridge in another 1¾ miles, thus adding 3½ miles round trip to your journey. Be aware that for a mile or so past the junction, the trail gives way in places to wet (or icy) jumbles of rocks, in addition to requiring a few branch and seep crossings along Madcap Branch.
Once Mingus Creek Trail reaches drier terrain above the branch, it begins to climb more sharply toward Mingus Ridge. Soon you top the ridge, arriving at a small gap and a junction with Deeplow Gap Trail at an elevation of about 3,600 feet. Nearby are the headwaters of Adams Creek, as well as the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. From here, you retrace your steps to the Mingus Mill parking area for a total hiking distance of nearly eight miles, including the cemetery spur.
Upon your return to the trailhead, you can visit a much smaller cemetery via a faint trail of about 50 yards from the upper end of the parking area. It’s the burial ground of several enslaved people, whose story also is an undeniable part of the human history of the Great Smoky Mountains.
- Trails: Mingus Creek, Cemetery Spur.
- Trailhead: Mingus Mill parking area off Newfound Gap Road, ½ mile north of Oconaluftee Visitor Center.
- Length (suggested): 4.2 miles round trip if you hike only to Mingus Cemetery and back.
- Difficulty: Easy to moderate.
About the author: Ben Anderson is longtime Smokies backcountry volunteer and author of Smokies Chronicle: A Year of Hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (blairpub.com).