Foothills Parkway from Eagleton Village

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Walland

   Walland is a crossroads village in the east Tennessee foothills, and the first impression is that the Smokies have been waiting politely behind it. A railway track, a few old wooden stores, horse pastures and a few estates of well-heeled owners line the road, while the long blue wall of the Great Smoky Mountains lies just to the south-east. Maryville, a bigger town not far away, supplies the services, and Walland is more a place of passing through, with a slow, rural feel.

   Read the complete Walland write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Walland is where the day begins. Next is Look Rock.

2. 2. Look Rock

   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.

   Read the complete Look Rock write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Look Rock comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Wears Valley.

3. 3. Wears Valley

   Wears Valley is the pleasant surprise in the middle of a tourist map. On one side, a few miles away, lie Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg with their pancake houses, mini-golf courses and neon, and on the other the long blue wall of the Smokies. Wears Valley sits between the two and manages to be quiet. The valley is a broad, green trough of farms, churches, roadside stands and cabins, with Cove Mountain rising along one side and the national park boundary behind it, and a creek wandering down its length. It takes its name from an early settler family, the Wears, who came here in the late eighteenth century.

   Read the complete Wears Valley write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 80 km into the recorded legs you reach Wears Valley. Next is Cosby.

4. 4. Cosby

   Cosby is the quiet corner of the Great Smoky Mountains, a scatter of farms and small houses along a creek in Cocke County, Tennessee, at the north-eastern entrance to the national park. While the western side of the Smokies is a carnival of mini-golf, go-karts and pancake houses, Cosby has a handful of stores, a church or two, and a road into the woods. It is about as far from Gatlinburg in spirit as you can get while still being in the same mountains.

   Read the complete Cosby write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Cosby closes the day.