re: Looking for a halfway point on the way to Gatlinburg

Little River Canyon close to Fort Payne or Gadsden is worth a half day visit. However, it's Lookout Mountain, Rock City & Ruby Falls for the win.

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Can you elaborate on this? Years ago someone told me Mentone was a good place to visit, haven't thought about it until now.

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There's not much to say. It's a few miles off the interstate and about 1,500 ft higher up. Closest real store is about 20 minutes to the south.

There's a scenic road that sits atop an 1,800-2000 ft ridge and extends to Georgia near Cloudland State Park.

We stayed on the ridge last fall and were thoroughly impressed with how peaceful the area was. It's a pretty steep drop off below most of the properties so be careful!

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try getting off at Calhoun and taking backroads to Tellico Plains and across the Cherohala Skyway 143 into Robbinsville all the way to Stecoah and use 28 to hook with your 74 route to 441.

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Did this and it was fantastic thanks for the recommendation. Will do this route every time.

Some trip highlights:
Chatanooga:
Ruby Falls was better than I remember
We ate at the purple daisy just down the mountain from it. Was pretty good for a little local place.

Gatlinburg:
Stayed in a cabin in Chalet Village. Great proximity to everything and felt remote. Loved the area.

Could go back a hundred times and never have to visit downtown. Just too touristy for me and nothing I can’t miss. Traffic is absolutely awful at all times too. Great people watching. We went for a day because I have a 10 year old who wanted to do a few things but even he said he wouldn’t want to do it again.

Pigeon Forge:
Dolly Partons stampede. Was a good time. Food isn’t anything to write home about but the show was fun and my son loved it.

Hartford:
Did a rafting trip down the pigeon river out of here and it was a ton of fun. There’s many companies here and that’s really what this small town is about. We did Rafting Outdoors and did the more challenging upper pigeon. Wife and son were both a little nervous as it was all of ours first time but afterwards they both said we’re doing that every time.

Nature/park:
Laurel falls on the way to cades cove was an easy hike and the falls themselves were just amazing. Would do again. Reports of a couple bears on the way up but actually saw one foraging in a gully on the way back out.

Roaring fork motor trail was fantastic. Will do that drive every time. We did another easy hike, Grotto Falls, and high we’re also very worth the hike. You can walk behind them and there are multiple deep pools you can take a dip in if you want to brave the cold.

On the way up, I heard a branch break about 15 yards ahead of me about 15 yards down off the trail. I stopped and slowly approached and sure enough, another bear was coming up. If he hadn’t broken that branch, I think we would have been on a collision course at the trail. I slowly backed up and he turned and walked up the trail ahead of us at about 1mph for 15-20 minutes. I tried to keep 50 yards between us but he was taking his time. A couple times there was a tight blind corner that was very nerve wracking as I wasn’t sure if he’d be waiting for me. Eventually we lost him and a bunch of people started coming down and didn’t see him so at some point he ducked off the trail.

We were going to do the sinks, but we had a ton of rain one day and the current in that area was just a little too much for me to let my son jump. He was bummed but I had to make that decision. There was a lot of people jumping but no kids. I wasn’t comfortable with what might happen with currents to a smaller body.

Saw elk, turkeys, chipmunks, salamanders, and of course bears.

Regarding bears:
I’m 44 and have been to the smokies 15-20 times and have seen 1 bear. And growing up my dad was all about nature so we spent a lot of times on hikes and in or near the woods. We saw 4 (the other 2 were walking on the side of the road just down from our cabin and one night a dog chased one into our driveway and into the woods) on this trip. We also had 3-4 times where people were gathered on trails talking about one they just saw. I guess they’re doing a good job of conservation

All in all a fantastic trip.