Atop The Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s Third-Highest Peak, This Rustic Lodge Is Celebrating 100 Years A stay at LeConte Lodge is well worth the trek.
By Cameron Beall, Published on May 21, 2025
It was seven o’clock on a cool summer evening in East Tennessee as my mom and I grabbed extra layers and headlamps to make the short trek to Cliff Tops, an area known for extraordinary sunsets (if not also the best view in Great Smoky Mountains National Park), just a quarter mile from the LeConte Lodge. Since arriving in the afternoon, we’d been mostly enveloped in a blanket of clouds but were hopeful for a glorious evening show.
