Big Creek hiking trail: best fall colors for November

The Smoky Mountains are one of the best places to go hiking and what could be better than hiking and seeing the best fall colors? Right now the Big Creek Hiking Trail is one of the last hiking trails to have great fall colors.

The Big Creek Hiking trail in the Great Smoky Mountains national park is very popular year round especially in the summer. Big Creek is less than an hour away from Pigeon Forge and even closer to Gatlinburg Tennessee and it offers regular and horse camping, a pretty picnic area near a river with beautiful water worn huge boulders.

The most popular hiking trail in Big Creek is the Big Creek Trail which is a very wide trail that was originally a railroad bed and logging road so it is although it climbs continuously in elevation the deeper you go in, the elevation gain is very gradual and the trail is very easy.

The fall colors start very early on the trail and can be seen on both the left hand side of the trail in the valley alongside the river that the trail follows and up the mountainside on the right among the huge boulder and rock faced cliffs.

Here you will find along the trail and up the mountainside there are tall trees that have bright yellows, gold and various shades of reds and still come purple wild flower in the aster family and ground cover and low under story plants in various fall colors.

Once you have gone in about a mile and a half the fall colors do decrease but they or more golden and the hiking trail is ankle deep in colorful fall leaves. Even though there is less colors there is still good reason to keep hiking on this trail even if you don't want to hike the full 5 miles in.

The first stop off to make on the Big Creek hiking trail is the Midnight Hole swimming pool by the Midnight Hole waterfall. 2 years of drought have lowered the water levels of the rivers and creeks in the Smokies and Midnight Hole is no exception.

In the summer midnight hole is filled with people swimming, floating on the water or diving off the large boulders across the stream. Even in the summer the water is very cool and now in the fall no one would dare swim here in the fall.

Since there are no swimmers here, this is a great spot to sit on one of the rocks and watch the colorful fall leaves floating in the water. There are a few colorful trees here but midnight hole is mostly surrounded by evergreens who keep their deep green leaves year round.

Just slightly after the 2 mile mark on the left hand side you will see a well worn path around some trees and rhododendrons and here you will look out over the river and across from you is Mouse Creek Falls one of the prettiest waterfalls in the entire Great Smoky Mountains national park.

Mouse Creek Falls is surrounded by evergreens so year round it looks very similar. Of course in winter there are touches of snow and ice sometimes and in the spring there are a few wildflowers blooming near by, but most flowers are closer to the trail.

Mouse Creek is a tributary of Big Creek and is usually never dry. The waterfalls have an upper and a lower falls with a total drop of more than 50 feet before it reaches Big Creek below.

The next stop you are going to make will not be for the fall colors which are still showing yellows and golds at this point on the trail.

This is something very special that you will near hear about or read in any of the guides for the Smoky Mountains. There is a huge rock on the right hand side of the trail further up the trail pictured here that acts like a giant amplifier.

If you stand by this rock you will hear how amplified the sound of Big Creek is. Try having one of your friend make noise further away and if you find the sweet spot you will hear it amplified here.

I don't know if this rock broke naturally as many of the boulders along this trail have or if this one of the boulders blasted with dynamite by the railroad or the Civilian Conservation Corp when they built this trail.

It worth going up the few more tenths of a mile past what I call Listen Rock to the big bridge that crosses Big Creek to at least take a picture.

On the right there is still fall color here now with some bright splashes of red. At this point in the trail there are far fewer leaves in the trees and even the ground cover has lost most of its color.

This is still a fantastic trail to hike further up on (keep your eyes open for the bricks in the trail) but if you have come to see the best fall colors on a hiking trail in the Smoky Mountains you have already seen them.

Big Creek: Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Fall leaf color report for Laurel Falls Hiking Trail

The Laurel Falls hiking trail in the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains national park is easily the most hiked trail in the entire park. This is also on of the few paved hiking trails and today it is in peak leaf season throughout the length of the trail.

The trailhead for Laurel Falls in on Little River Road and has a paved parking area which at peak times can be rather full. There is a self guiding tour pamphlet you can purchase right at the beginning of the trail and as you can see the color starts right in the parking lot.

What makes this hiking trail one of the best trails for seeing fall colors in the national park is that you gently climb up in elevation and trees change color to the sides and above you and often you have overlooks looking out at mountains across from the trail and some whole small mountains ranges that are all filling in with fall colors.

There are many varieties of trees along the trail with little undergrowth at the beginning switchbacks so you the ability to have a panoramic view of the forest below you and interesting rock formations on the sides of the trail and above you.

The Laurel Falls Waterfall starts above the trail and collects in a pool that runs under the trail and drops of a shear rock drop to the steam below. The rocks are very slippery on the falls and you are forbidden from climbing on them as people have fallen off of the falls and have gotten hurt. Small children must also be under strict control as the large drop off has no guard rails.

The trees above the falls are showing peach, red, and yellow in the leaves. The rhododendron on the sides and way above the falls stay a beautiful dark green year round.

When there is water in the stream above the falls that can be a huge torrent of water but alas we are in a drought here in the Smokies and the flow though much larger than it appears in the picture below is in fact just a trickle compared to what it could be.

When it gets real cold here Laurel Falls first has ice form on the sides. If you are lucky to catch the falls after there is a bug snow melt and it refreezes the entire waterfall becomes a huge dazzling ice sculpture that must be seen in person to be appreciated.

While most people stop at the waterfall and turn around, the best part of the hike is just 20 more minutes beyond the falls. Here you will leave all the crowds that come to see the falls behind and you enter the forest of huge trees.

The Smoky Mountains national park was heavily logged and almost all the old growth huge trees were cut and taken away. Here on this trail they could not reach some of the trees to log them and they are a sight to see.

These huge trees will be peaking shortly and color along the whole trail should be good for more than a week. The overlooks will have reds and oranges in the distance for at least another 2 or more weeks.

Anytime of the year this is a great trail to explore and is less than 20 minute from mostof the cabin rentals in the Smokies.