2024 was one thing of a combined bag for the world-famous Nice Smoky Mountains Nationwide Park. On the one hand, Great Smoky Mountains once again took the title of “most-visited American national park” with ease, welcoming almost 13 million guests all year long. Alternatively, ongoing development initiatives and harm from Hurricane Helene compelled the closure of a number of common areas. In the end, the end of 2024 saw both good and bad news for would-be visitors to the Great Smoky Mountains. Main areas, akin to the Cataloochee Valley, were finally reopened after incurring hurricane damage; nevertheless, new finances cuts and employees shortages in 2025 are including much more complications.
Luckily, Tennessee and North Carolina — the 2 states that share Nice Smoky Mountains Nationwide Park — every have loads of superb Nice Smoky Mountains options. On the Tennessee aspect, the under-the-radar Pickett CCC Memorial State Park is a surprisingly extremely ranked entry on the checklist of terrific Tennessee state parks.
Whereas its identify could also be a little bit of a mouthful, Pickett CCC Memorial State Park is a real hidden gem of Tennessee’s pure magnificence, with distinctive geological and environmental options that simply evaluate to the well-known (however typically crowded) sights within the Nice Smoky Mountains. Pickett CCC Memorial State has excellent options on each the land and on the water, alongside a number of really distinctive geological formations that look extra like options from the American Southwest than Appalachia. And although Pickett CCC Memorial State Park can be a chief vacation spot for its pure magnificence alone, the park can be a residing historic museum that preserves a major interval of American historical past into the current day.
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Pickett CCC Memorial State Park Has Options That Rival Even The Nice Smokies
The pure bridge by the doorway of Pickett CCC Memorial State Park, Tennessee
State parks are likely to get a lot much less consideration than their nationwide park counterparts. But most of the nation’s greatest nationwide parks have a number of state park equivalents that supply related views in a smaller and fewer crowded setting. Throughout America’s Appalachian area, you’ll find loads of amazing state park alternatives to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Tennessee, specifically, is wealthy in very good Nice Smoky Mountains analogs (not surprisingly, since half of Nice Smoky Mountains Nationwide Park is in Tennessee). Unheralded but beautiful Tennessee mountain destinations like Signal Mountain make excellent scenic rivals to the Great Smokies. And if you take a look at Tennessee’s state park system specifically, you get no scarcity of worthy locations that meet the lofty customary set by America’s hottest nationwide park.
Tennessee’s Pickett CCC Memorial State Park is one such vacation spot. Positioned in northern Tennessee’s Pickett County, simply south of the Kentucky border and adjoining to the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Pickett CCC Memorial State Park is an unsung showcase of the great thing about Appalachia’s already-unsung Cumberland Mountains area. This explicit stretch of the Appalachian Mountains does not fairly have the upper peaks and epic vistas of the Nice Smokies additional east. Nonetheless, Pickett CCC Memorial State Park makes up for it with really grand forest surroundings, waterways, and a number of the East Coast’s most placing geological marvels.
The distinctive geology of the Cumberland Mountains left Pickett CCC Memorial State Park with a plethora of distinctive sandstone formations that would not look misplaced within the alien panorama of Utah. This contains sizable natural rock bridges that appear like japanese cousins of the famed pink rock bridges of Arches Nationwide Park, solely right here mendacity within the coronary heart of a stunning Appalachian forest as a substitute of the Utah desert. The park additionally comprises massive sandstone cliffs and intricate cave systems that rival the spectacular Nice Smoky Mountains in sheer grandeur, if not in measurement.
Pickett CCC Memorial State Park’s pure wonders do not even finish with its outstanding geology, enchanting forests, and scenic waterways. One among its most peculiar treasures is hidden away within the park’s Hazard Cave. For those who enterprise into the cave someday between Might and July, you may assume you’ve got gotten misplaced and wandered out into an open clearing as a substitute. That is as a result of the cave’s roof is populated with a rare species of “glowworm” (really the larvae of a species of gnat) that employs bioluminescence to actually glow in a comfortable blue mild for a shimmering mimicry of the night time sky. Entry to the glowworm cave is simply obtainable by way of a ranger-led tour between Might and July. Registration for the Hazard Cave After Darkish tour is available on the park’s website.
In fact, in the event you’d moderately see the precise night time sky as a substitute of a worm’s imitation, it’s also possible to simply enterprise outdoors throughout a transparent night time and revel in a number of the greatest darkish sky viewing on the East Coast. Because of its lack of sunshine air pollution, Pickett CCC Memorial State Park has been named a Silver-tier International Dark Sky Park.
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Historic Connections And Pure Magnificence
Sandstone cliff with wildflowers and mountain laurel on the sting of Arch Lake in Pickett CCC Memorial State Park
Pickett CCC Memorial State Park is wealthy in northern Tennessee’s pure magnificence, however it’s equally wealthy in historic significance. The “CCC” within the park’s identify stands for “Civilian Conservation Corps,” a New Deal-era public works program that allowed younger males to work on public land enchancment initiatives through the top of the Nice Melancholy. As you in all probability gleaned from the park’s identify, a lot of Pickett CCC Memorial State Park’s infrastructure was constructed by devoted CCC staff again within the Nineteen Thirties.
The park’s pure magnificence is so expansive that the CCC’s important contributions might get misplaced. Nonetheless, as lovely because the park is right now, issues may have performed out very in another way in an alternate timeline. Earlier than 1933, the land that’s now Pickett CCC Memorial State Park was owned by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company, primarily for useful resource extraction. Even after Stearns donated the land to the state of Tennessee, public officers had been confronted with the key problem of remodeling greater than 20,000 acres of sparse woodlands and previous mining websites right into a worthwhile public park.
Enter the Civilian Conservation Corps. Between 1934 and 1942, the CCC worked tirelessly to mold the raw landscape into a stunning and accessible public nature protect. Because of the efforts of 1000’s of devoted CCC staff, the once-barren stretch of land quickly sported cabins, lodges, ranger stations, and miles and miles of scenic mountaineering trails. The fruits of the CCC’s labor are nonetheless preserved within the park right now, ready to be loved by guests.
Although Tennessee has many parks and public lands that owe their existence to the CCC, this explicit space within the Cumberland Mountains is probably the clearest instance of how a lot profit public funding and arduous work can have on America’s panorama. Because of this, Pickett CCC Memorial State Park is the plain option to be named particularly as a memorial to the Civilian Conservation Corps.
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Uncover Some Of Tennessee’s Finest Outside Adventures
Pickett CCC Memorial State Park is a terrific spot for sightseeing and historic schooling. However even in the event you’re not an newbie photographer or a historical past buff, the park can be simply a superb vacation spot for fun and family-friendly recreation.
Because of its pure status and the arduous work of the Civilian Conservation Corps, Pickett CCC Memorial State Park has miles and miles of great mountaineering trails. Many of the park’s trails are quite short — some lower than a mile lengthy — with comparatively simple and fewer strenuous treks to a number of of the park’s many pure wonders, like Hazard Cave, Arch Lake, pure rock bridges (plus loads of historic CCC-built shelters and cabins). For those who’re searching for an extended day hike, it’s also possible to enterprise out to the 8.5-mile Hidden Passage Path or journey past the park alongside Tennessee’s John Muir National Recreation Trail.
Pickett CCC Memorial State Park provides simply as many actions within the water because it does on land. The park’s designated swimming area could also be Tennessee’s most lovely, with enchanting sandstone bluffs and bushes bracketing the lakeside seashore. Most of the park’s lakes and waterways are additionally great spots for boating and fishing, with canoes, kayaks, and rowboats obtainable to lease between April and October. And very similar to the Nice Smoky Mountains, Pickett CCC Memorial State Park is a great spot for birdwatching.
If you wish to keep in a single day, the park has both standard and deluxe cabins available to rent, a few of which had been constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps almost a century in the past! Or, if you’d like a extra rustic expertise, the park also has 26 campsites that include water hookups, grills, picnic tables, bathhouses, and a dump station. Irrespective of the place you find yourself sleeping, you will be waking up within the coronary heart of one in all Tennessee’s most lovely and historic settings!
- Inhabitants
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6.975 Million (2021)
- Based Date
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June 1, 1796
Pickett CCC Memorial State Park might not have the celebrity of Nice Smoky Mountains Nationwide Park, however its quiet trails, pure bridges, lakes, and star-gazer-friendly skies provide a peaceable, unforgettable escape. For these in search of magnificence with out the crowds, Pickett may simply be Tennessee’s best-kept outside secret.
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