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Cades Cove

Photo: Scott Basford / CC BY-SA 3.0

⛰️ Mountains

Cades Cove

Townsend, TN · Great Smoky Mountains

About

A wide green valley ringed by the hazed blue ridges of the Smokies, reached by an 11-mile one-way loop that the herds of deer and the occasional black bear treat as their own. John Oliver's 1820s log cabin and three plain white pioneer churches still stand in the meadows where families farmed for more than a century. Come at first light, before the cars stack up, when fog is still lifting off the grass and the mountains are doing exactly what the name promises.

Highlights

11-mile one-way loop roadJohn Oliver Cabin and pioneer churchesDeer and black bear at dawnBlue-hazed Smoky Mountain ridges

Getting there

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The Blue Ridge Mountains26 places

The Blue Ridge Mountains

The ancient, blue-hazed peaks of the southern Appalachians, threaded by the Blue Ridge Parkway from Shenandoah to the Smokies. Mile-high summits and the highest peak east of the Mississippi, waterfalls you can walk behind, long-range overlooks, and mountain towns like Asheville with the Biltmore at their heart. Go in October for the color, but the haze is blue year-round.