Chimney Tops

Sunday morning, we woke up a bit later as it was starting to get light out, although still very cold. We had a more leisurely morning, eating breakfast and breaking camp, and finally leaving at around 930. We would be heading home, but not before getting in some good views of fall color. For this, we would need to go higher in elevation. Wanting to avoid traffic congestion in Gatlinburg, we took US-441 through the park and stopped at the trailhead for Chimney Tops, shortly before Newfound Gap. Since it was already a little later in the morning, the parking lot was almost full. Jim got the last open parking spot and we were able to pull in behind another car that was leaving. We seemed to have been very lucky on this trip in getting the last available parking spots everywhere we went. The hike up to the Chimney Tops is a strenuous two miles. The trail initially crosses a bridge over West Prong Little Pigeon River and starts heading up.

There were a couple more bridges across Road Prong and many steps leading up alongside the creek. The rocky stream didn’t have any waterfalls on it, but the many cascades over the rocks were beautiful.

After 0.9 miles, the trail splits, with left being the Road Prong Trail and right continuing on Chimney Tops Trail. From this point, it really gets steep for quite a ways and then finally levels off as it gets to the ridgeline. Overall, the trail gains about 1400 feet over the course of two miles and so the cool weather made for good hiking under strenuous conditions. The trail finally terminates at Chimney Tops, a steep rock outcrop with amazing views of the Smoky Mountains from nearly 5000 feet. There were some interesting trees up here and we had to climb up and around the roots to get to the end, but there was much more climbing to reach the top. Although quite a few people made the strenuous hike up, few continued on to the top of Chimney Tops. This was more rock climbing than hiking and was a little scary but lots of fun. I’m not particularly afraid of heights, but looking down the sheer drop-offs on either side was enough to give me a little bit of anxiety. The rocks go almost straight up at about a 60° angle or more, but there are many ridges and bumps to provide hand and foot holds. We slowly made the climb up to the top and sat on the edge enjoying the views.

From here, the fall colors on the surrounding mountains were fantastic. Looking down at the lower elevations, the leaves were mostly green, but up here near 5000 feet, the colors were exploding in bursts of orange, yellow, red, and purple.

There were a couple of really interesting patches along the mountains of intense color running across a part of the mountain while all around it was mostly green. We took some pictures up here and enjoyed the view, then started heading back down.

I would have expected going down the Chimney Tops would be worse than going up, but that wasn’t the case. I found going down to actually be easier, using a combination of butt-sliding and stepping down between the ridges and grooves in the rock face. For safety, I always made sure I had at least one foot and one hand on a sturdy hold before going down another “step”. Once at the base, we started hiking back to the trailhead. It was all downhill from here and we made it back to the parking lot quickly. Back in the cars, we continued on US-441 past Newfound Gap and into North Carolina towards Cherokee. At the high elevations near the center of the park, the colors were great. Unfortunately, everyone was hungry so we didn’t stop and could only enjoy the views from the car. To avoid the expected traffic congestion in Cherokee, we got on the Blue Ridge Parkway and got off at US-19 near Maggie Valley and made our way back towards I-40. We stopped on the way home at Las Salsas, my favorite Mexican restaurant, for an early and very satisfying dinner and then finished the drive back to the Raleigh area.