Deep Creek Trail, Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/20/62022	2.8 miles	1 hour 24 minutes	792'	2.1 mph	248.3

Parking: 

• Deep Creek Trail Trailhead

Maps:

• National Geographic Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Directions:

• Take trail from parking area. Turn around after 1.4 miles

Our friend Dian drove down from Virginia to do some section hiking with us. We met up with her this morning at Newfound Gap to do a day hike on the AT. Our planned section had us driving up Clingman's Dome Road. On the drive up I saw a sign saying the road was closed! Ack! I texted another friend to ask about it, and we found out that the road was temporarily closed until 1pm today. It was posted online, but just not something I thought of checking. We had some time to kill, so we took out our map, and decided to hike on the close by Deep Creek Trail as a warmup hike. On the map, the trail looked pretty level, but was actually a gentle downhill along a stream, followed by a gentle uphill return. We didn't want to wear ourselves out before our main hike of the day. The trail had a few major blowdowns, but otherwise was nice hiking. Lots of wildflowers lined the trail.