Les Jones

East Tennessee > The Road That Goes Nowhere Still Will

The National Park Service will recommend a payout to Swain County rather than finishing the "Road to Nowhere" in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Michael Silence has the story. Here's a good history of how the Road to Nowhere came to be (turn off your speakers if you don't like banjo music).

That's good news as far as I'm concerned. One of my all time favorite backpacking trips went through that road. To get there you drive through a little Western North Carolina mountain town called Bryson City. It's a charming, quirky place, with a diminuitive downtown. When I was there the town had a Chinese restaurant, a BBQ joint, a nice pet shop, and a backpacking store built inside a rather impressive former bank. Those weren't the only places in downtown, but they're the ones I remember.

You go past the town, past the vicinity of Deep Creek Campground, and then you come to a gate. You park, and the first thing you do is to hike down a paved road through a long automobile tunnel carved out of the mountain. It's a strange experience, walking through a tunnel meant for cars. There's a fair bit of graffiti inside.

The road ends just on the far side of the tunnel.

The Road is part of Lakeside Trail. It connects to Goldmine Loop Trail and leads to a designated campsite bordered by a troutstream. When we arrived at camp a couple of guys were whisking lines over the water.

A quarter mile of level walk past the campsite is Fontana Lake. The shore sloped casually into the water. The water was clean and clear. You could easily see to the bottom of the lake. Go if you ever get the chance.