33 Twin Creeks

While there’s no such thing as a bad hike in the Smokies, this one isn’t one of the best. The forest here is scraggly and seems to be struggling to recover from years of pre-park farming and clearing. Poison ivy covers the trail sides, and you’re within earshot (sometimes eyesight) of a paved road the entire way. That said, one attribute of this hike makes it worth including in this guidebook. It makes a great split-party hike. Go with the family to visit Noah “Bud” Ogle Place, maybe hiking the nature trail, and then let them go back to the hotel in Gatlinburg while you laze your way back on foot. The trail ends at the common boundary between the park and Gatlinburg.

(See map for Hike 28: Sugarlands Valley Nature Trail.)

Start: Parking area for Noah “Bud” Ogle Place on Cherokee Orchard Road

Distance: 2.4 miles point to point

Hiking time: About 1.5 hours—day hike

Difficulty: Easy

Trail surface: Forest trail

Other trail users: Hikers only

Maps: Mount LeConte and Gatlinburg USGS quads; Trails Illustrated #229 Great Smoky Mountains; Trails Illustrated #317 Clingmans Dome Cataloochee; Trails Illustrated #316 Cades Cove Elkmont

Other: Ample parking is available at the cabin, but there are no facilities.

Special considerations: Poison ivy grows abundantly along the entire route. Make sure the kids (and their parents) know how to identify it before making this hike.

Finding the trailhead: From US 441 in Gatlinburg, turn at traffic light #8 onto Historic Nature Trail–Airport Road and drive 0.6 mile to a confusing intersection. Stay to the right and continue straight ahead. You soon enter the park on Cherokee Orchard Road. Reach Noah “Bud” Ogle Place on the right, 2.6 miles from traffic light #8. The parking area is on the right, just before the cabin. The nature trail starts behind the cabin. GPS: N35 41.005' / W83 29.412'

The Hike

Begin the hike by exploring the old Ogle farm, and then start hiking Noah “Bud” Ogle Nature Trail, which begins behind the cabin. At 0.3 mile turn right (north) on Twin Creeks Trail. Descend gently, passing by rock walls, boxwood shrubs, and other signs of early settlement. About a mile into the hike, you pass through a rock wall and then have to cross a paved road. (The road leads to Twin Creeks Science and Education Facility.)

Soon you’ll cross a small creek branch at the junction with Grassy Branch Trail. That trail and a few others weave through the mountains between here and the park entrance on Newfound Gap Road. These trails are open to the public, but their primary use is for equestrians.

From the creek crossing, it’s a short walk to the end of the trail on Cherokee Orchard Road. A right turn takes you back to Noah “Bud” Ogle Place in 1.75 miles. A left turn takes you into the asphalt and concrete morass of Gatlinburg.

Miles and Directions

0.0Begin from the parking area and walk behind the cabin to start the trail.

0.3Turn right (north) on Twin Creeks Trail.

1.0Junction with paved road that leads to Twin Creeks facility. Cross over the road and continue on Twin Creeks Trail.

2.4End of Twin Creeks Trail on Cherokee Orchard Road at the park boundary.

Discovering Life

The paved road you cross over on the Twin Creeks hike leads to the park’s Twin Creeks Science and Education Facility. The facility is the heart and brain for scientific research in the park. A fascinating project under way in the park at the time of this writing is the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI), conducted by Discover Life in America (DLIA), a nonprofit organization based in the park. ATBI is a concentrated effort to identify and record every single species living within Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with the exception of bacteria. DLIA funds and coordinates the project, bringing in scientists from all over the world who are experts in their fields.

Scientists estimate that there are some 100,000 living organisms in the park, not including bacteria. As of early 2012 the ATBI checklist includes just under 18,000 species. An exciting aspect of the inventory is all the new discoveries being made. More than 7,000 species on the list are new to the park, and an astonishing 922 are new to science. That’s right: Researchers have so far found 922 species no one knew existed in the world! We don’t need to go to the tropical rainforests or the depths of the oceans to discover new life. ATBI shows just how little we know about our own backyard.

The objective of the ATBI project is not just in creating a checklist. As DLIA states, “It is a complex and living database of species locations, habitats, genetic diversity, population density, symbiotic relationships, and predator-prey interactions. It is a cooperative effort between expert scientists specializing in all different forms of life. It is a way to discover new species in need of protection, to identify new threats in time to act, and to understand how to protect a complex and valuable ecosystem like the Smoky Mountains.”

As you probably noticed on the sign as you drove to the trailhead, Twin Creeks Science and Education Facility is not open to the public, so cross the road and continue on your hike. However, you can do so with the knowledge that some pretty amazing things are going on just a short distance up that road.