With a mission to find the Rock House, we have been driving the short and pleasant 3 hours to Gatlinburg, Tennessee through the summer and fall to visit the Great Smoky Mountains and its majestic trails. Our latest goal was the Old Sugarlands Trail to see the landmarks and historic ruins, nature and beauty, including the famous “Rock House.” It took us two different hikes, and we found it (with some help)! Our first mistake was misunderstanding a sign and proceeding to follow an old horse trail, that was very steep and very narrow. So we lost an hour there, before we circled back and took the correct path along the river. We should have known however we were on the wrong trail when a caravan of riders on horseback came down the trail and said to us, “y’all are really brave for walking up there!”
The correct Old Sugarlands Trail follows a river for most of the way, is wide, and full of wildflowers and an enormous variety of trees. We saw ruins of an old early 20th century campgrounds including the ruins of a clock towers, and also found an old pioneer cemetery that where we paid our respects and wondered if the Partons we saw buried there were ancestors of the great Dolly Parton (RIP). We had to give up taking the possible trail to the famous stone destination as the sun started setting and we had at least an hour back to our car.
So we went back to the drawing board to find a path to this landmark, and we were lucky to discover the YouTube account An Adventure with Nick and Rachel, https://www.youtube.com/@NickandRachel. We contacted Nick who gave us advice and direction, and a path from the hiking app AllTrails to use and follow.
So we are thankful to Nick for his advice, and it worked! The AllTrails app is pretty amazing as it lets you download a map and path to follow, and as long as you complete the required steps before you go hiking, while still connected to a strong internet connection, you can create a map you can follow even while you are not online! The Great Smoky Mountains are mostly internet free zones, and these stone ruins are so remote that the path there quickly became internet free. But we were able to follow the map and we were thrilled and felt like we had won a Survivor challenge when we laid eyes on the Rock House.
This incredible site was built by an early 20th century naturalist, Shelby Layman to study the flora and wildlife of the area. It is a true “ruins” as many of the stone walls are crumbling. We found it fascinating to see some huge quartz slabs used as bricks in the walls, in addition to the schist and local granite/limestone that is the majority of the old stone cabin walls and foundations.
It was a treat to see, felt like an adventure finding it, thank you again to An Adventure with Nick and Rachel, https://www.youtube.com/@NickandRachel and also AllTrails!
