Elkmont Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Exploring Little River Trail and Daisy Town

hey guys we are here at elk mont in the great smoky mountain national park we're going to explore around maybe do a little bit of hiking and see what there is to see this is a really historic area full of some old buildings old hotels elkmont was actually a very popular luxury resort before the area became the national park so come along with us [Music] [Music] so lots of history here see the old retaining walls maybe this was an old gate but back before the park was formed people would come in on a train and they had resort vacation homes here uh for the wealthy and this area is being slowly taken back over by nature but there's still lots of remnants of the resort and old homes and as you can see walls and it's pretty cool area [Music] [Music] look at the size of this tree it's hard to tell on the video but this tree is probably five foot in diameter okay make that six or seven foot [Music] wow all right and our sun found another old home site looks like you see the retaining wall and there's a chimney [Music] looks like the base of the house [Music] actually this was probably a porch based on what i can tell because there's the front steps and then we go chimney all right one of the more popular sites to see in outmode is that it's called the troll bridge just an old bridge that was here from when elmo was a resort not really sure why they call it the troll bridge there's probably some interesting story behind this so unfortunately a lot of the old homes that were here have been torn down by the park due to just falling into disrepair and being dangerous for people to to walk through so not having the budget to fully restore them they just tore them down so a lot of times now all you see is leftover chimneys and rock retaining walls the one exception is daisy town which we'll show you later in the video daisy town they are fully restoring you'll see lots of construction equipment up there and lumber and things like that [Music] and here's another chimney you can actually tell how hot the floor was because you can see the the base of the fireplace right there [Music] yeah it looks like this house had two jewels or fireplaces rather so we are on little river trail which of course goes right by a little river as you guys can hear uh this is an old railroad grade so very very flat sort of a gradual [Music] incline nice and wide like i said that's it is creekside so lots of cool areas to go so i had to go in the ninjago mode just to be too hot um one of the nice surprises i guess today is that uh being labor day we expected it to be very busy and there's really hardly anybody here i would expect maybe once we get over to daisy town i'll get a little busier but here on the trail there's a really nobody so we kind of got the whole trail to ourselves right now you look closely there is a snake i'm not sure exactly what kind looks sort of like a water snake but uh i almost stepped on him i'm not sure who's scared who works so usually i'm watching for him and one time i don't watch for one there was one literally underneath my feet and i'm pretty sure that's a northern water safe they're also mistaken for copperheads because of a similar pattern but you can tell by the shape of the head and just the pattern on the body it's not a copperhead so he's harmless they they're fairly aggressive so they will bite but non-venomous so leave them alone go enjoy the river my crazy son [Music] [Music] so what we just explored a little small trail right off the side of the main trail and came across this beautiful little creek and trickling water and it's just the sounds are just amazing and nice and shady and nice and cool check out this huge boulder in the middle of the river here there's a pretty neat pool underneath that as well [Music] so [Music] [Music] so we'll walk along the trail and see this really deep section of water i think for an awesome swimming hole check out this scene behind me folks is that not gorgeous absolutely beautiful so it's kind of hard to believe this um area back in the 1920s 1930s before the park was officially formed early 1900s i guess um was a huge logging operation so that's what this trail basically came from was an old railroad grade that was used to haul lumber in and out of the woods back to the main lumbering facility or sawmill i guess in altmont [Applause] and that area combined with the lumber company became a resort area i'm not sure exactly how that happened but um it did over time people started building homes actually built a really luxurious hotel called the wonderland hotel that just sadly burned down but uh it's just kind of neat to be hiking along here and just think that you know early 1900s you know 100 years ago or so that there were steam trains going back and forth right here while we're walking oh you guys aren't gonna believe this but this mosque it's like probably a good five six inches thick [Music] [Applause] [Music] apparently we have a very unhappy bench here what's wrong little guy i'll tell you guys it's been a while since we hiked this trail and i've actually forgotten just how beautiful it really is i mean we keep seeing one beautiful scene after another it's absolutely amazing but i definitely recommend you give the trailer shot look at that waterfall hey guys so behind me is daisy town which is sort of the the main street or or main area of elk mont the oakmont resort area lots of historic homes here if you look off to the in the distance behind me you can see there's some construction equipment lumber so what they're doing is they're taking all these old homes that were too dilapidated to even go into i had rotten floors rotten walls and they're restoring them they're only doing the houses in daisy town though there were a bunch of other houses around daisy town those have all been torn down and there's nothing left but chimneys and concrete floors now but they are restoring these which is kind of cool so we'll take you around and show you the homes all right so this is the appalachian clubhouse this was sort of the resort clubhouse as the name says quite kind of obvious but um they still uh have meetings here and people can do banquets and stuff like that you know under more normal times so just imagine um around 100 years ago families staying here in the mountains in their vacation homes kids riding their bikes on the road couples walking up and down the sidewalks now it's a national park here's one of the homes they're working on in fact you can smell the fresh wood and then the ones across are barricaded off you can see they got fresh coats of paint on them and lots of lumber so they're working they look really nice these were about to fall apart the last time we were here little kids cut log cabin there if you click through on our elk guide i actually have the history behind that little cabin [Music] find that link in the description below so this is one of the finish that you can actually go into original stairs [Music] here's the main entrance area the chimney looks like we have part of a little bed new floors the floors last time that holes people had they had rotten people were following through let's get a little bed around [Music] i think that moon needs like an outhouse maybe that's where the bathroom is or an old outhouse i remember correctly another bedroom and we've got like the back porch area for maybe the kitchen [Music] but you can tell these are old because the glass is kind of wavy like old glass normally is it's not crystal clear like new windows looks like this here in the washroom another room [Music] and back out onto the front porch it's just imagine sitting here on this front porch family's playing kids playing with kids playing family's out walking on vacation [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] oh really cool i gotta admit they're a little creepy [Music] a little patty over here [Music] this must have been the kitchen sink and a little stove i'm gonna check that out if uh any of you ever used a stove like this let us know in the comments i'd love to hear about it i've never seen one of these used [Music] really old cabin here right this wraps up our visit to oakmont hope you guys had a good time hope you enjoyed the video if you did be sure to hit that like button and be sure to hit that subscribe button as well so you're notified of all our future content and we'll see on the next adventure

Channel: Blue Ridge Mountain Life

Views: 1,201

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: great smoky mountains national park, elkmont abandoned town, elkmont tennessee, elkmont tn, elkmont ghost town, daisy town smoky mountains, daisy town elkmont, little river trail smokies, little river trail smoky mountains, little river trail gatlinburg tn, great smoky mountains, little river trail

Id: A56u0ilNJjw

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 30 2020