The Foothills Parkway was dreamed up in the 1940s as a high, slow, view-first road along the northern edge of the Great Smoky Mountains, and then spent about seventy years being finished. Look Rock is the best-known stop on its western section, a ridge-top spot on Chilhowee Mountain where the road pauses beside an old observation tower, a campground and a long run of overlooks. From here the Smokies spread to the south-east as a series of blue-grey ridges, each paler than the one in front, and to the north-west the land falls away across the Tennessee Valley toward Knoxville.
The riding is the reason you came, and it is consistently good. The parkway has no commercial traffic, no signs for fudge, and a speed limit that discourages heroics, so it moves in long, easy, well-cambered bends through oak and hickory forest. The surface is smooth and the engineering is generous, with wide lanes and big sightlines. Early on a weekday, with mist still in the hollows, it feels almost private. Weekends in October, when the leaves turn, are another matter entirely, and the whole region fills with drivers who have come for the colour. In winter, ice can close the parkway with little warning, so check before you set off.
The newer section beyond Wears Valley, the so-called Missing Link, was finally opened in 2018 after decades of delay. It is a spectacular stretch of road with long bridges that swing out over the valleys on tall piers, and it connects the two halves of the parkway at last. Look Rock sits at the western end of the older part, and it is a good place to get your bearings, with the shape of the land laid out below you.
Maryville, about ten kilometres away, is the nearest proper town, with petrol, supermarkets and every kind of food, and Alcoa is just beside it. The picnic area and toilets at the top are handy, and the wind on the ridge can have a bite even when the valley is warm. Black bears live in these woods, and in the evening they sometimes wander near the road, so give them distance and keep your food out of reach.