metcalf bottoms picnic area

We had a family picnic here and found it quiet and peaceful. Plenty of spots by the water with easy access. Restrooms were clean and there were several in each loop. We took the Greenbrier school trail and it was an interesting addition to the day. This place is A great alternative to the chimneys area.

There is an entrance to the park from Wears Valley. It is a great place to picnic and play in the water. It can be swift though so be careful.

On the road to Cades Cove, this picnic area has plenty of tables right next to a very pretty stream. What a wonderful place to sit and have a picnic lunch. This is my favorite picnic spot in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Of course, I'm partial to water views. I highly recommend a stop even if you're not going to picnic. The restrooms are fine here.

We discovered the Metcalf Bottoms Picnic Area a few years back & decided this would be a place we would try to visit each trip to the Smokies. It is a nice place to take the kids to go wading in the river. It has some shallow spots and some deeper spots so you will want to stay with your toddlers. Current can be swift depending on how much rain the area has gotten lately. Also, the rocks can be slippery, so we wear our water shoes. There are several picnic tables and grills along the river here. There also a couple of flush toilets & locking trash cans. No changing rooms if you want to can into/out of a swim suit. You can take a trail from Metcalf Bottoms to Little Greenbrier School & the Walker Sisters cabin.Overall, we all had a great time at the Metcalf Bottoms Picnic Area. We spent a little while wading in the river. The kids loved jumping off the larger river rocks & splashing in the river. We did not picnic here, but there were plenty of open spaces if we wanted to. Plenty of parking too. It is for sure going to be a place the kids ask to go back to each trip! Best part of all is that it is just a short drive from downtown Gatlinburg & the Sugarlands Visitor Center down Little River Rd. AND it is FREE!!Note: You can take Lyon Springs Rd. from Metcalf Bottoms over to Wears Valley OR vice versa. It is a nice ride.

Fantastic area for a picnic. We ate our food right by the stream that runs parallel to the picnic area. Peaceful, shallow enough for kids to play in the water and beautiful! We made sure to pack all our food and leftovers back in our backpack and dispose properly. We also saw others bring their tubes and tube down the stream. The rocks are slippery so it is advisable to wear water shoes or something similar. Highly recommend for families with kids.

I researched some places for water play in the national park for this years trip, and this spot was in relatively close proximity to us. We liked it so much we went back a second time before we left for home. We went during a bit of an off week on a weekday, so it wasn't crowded at all; maybe during peak times it would not have been as fun. The water here is good for wading and tubing, and general splashing around. The compared to the chimneys area near Gatlinburg, it is less rocky, felt safer for the little ones to carefully walk around, but maybe a little bit less serene feeling as a trade off. Great place for a picnic and a couple of hours to cool off in the summer. There are also public restrooms at this site.

We were looking for a nice picnic area where the kids could play in the river, and boy did we find it! Metcalf Bottoms has very nice picnic tables, and several bathroom facilities. We chose a picnic table right beside the water. We could see the kids play, and skip rocks in water that was no more than knee deep. They loved it! It was not crowded at all on the day of our visit, but it had been a little dreary that morning. We will make this place a new picnic tradition with the kids when visiting the Smokies!

Must visit area in the Smokies. My kids feel in love with this location. Nice cool stream to spend time skipping rocks and enjoying nature. go late afternoon and there is nobody there, whole place to yourself!!!!

Every year for the last fifteen years or so, we've made it a point to visit Metcalf Bottoms to grill out or just bring a basket of food to eat as close to the waters edge as possible. Each table comes with a small charcoal grill. It's a very peaceful place to eat or just relax to the sounds of the rushing river. Lots of available parking and nice, clean modern toilet facilities with running water.

Went here last summer for the first time after reading about it on tripadvisor.com. We loved it. Cold,clean water. Not too crowed. Nice picnic areas. Will definately go back this year.

I can think of nothing that could be more peaceful than a picnic by a quiet mountain stream, with good friends and family members. That has been our experience at Metcalf Bottoms on several occasions. This picnic area is on the road between Gatlinburg and Cades Cove. It includes restroom facilities, very nice concrete picnic tables, mostly beside the Little River, and charcoal grills. Better than the manmade facilities, the peaceful water rolling over small pebbles and giant boulders, with all varieties of plant and wildlife, make it perfect for enjoying God's beauty without having a long trek to the wilderness. A bridge crosses the river at Metcalf Bottoms, which allows easy entrance to the Park and exit into Wears' Valley.

It's not just a place to park to see the Walker Sister's cabin...Metcalf Bottoms has a history. My great great Grandmother Sarah Jane Metcalf and the entire Metcalf clan owned many acres of what is now the National Park. Where the parking area is was once a field of Hickory King corn, that they grew to feed their families and sell to the loggers and railroad workers in the area. Where the bathrooms are, was once the store ran by Sarah Jane where people in the area would buy the vegetables grown by the family , eggs, etc...there is alot of history there, which the park service needs to make a plaque or sign about to show people what was once there. Children played in those creeks ...there was an entire clan of people living and surviving right where you sit to have your picnic !

Not really my kind of picnic area. It was so crowded you could not even find a park. People were taking up multiply tables so there were not enough for everybody. River around area was pretty.

picnic spots are spread out so you don't feel jammed up on one another; fun creek for wading and rock chunkin'. Very clean.

The Litte River drive is consistently my favorite in the Smokies. When we take the time to photograph spring wildflowers, and do a few short hikes during this drive between Sugarlands Visitor Center and the Townsend "wye", we usually get hungry. Metcalf Bottoms is a comfortable, very large, picnic ground to stop and enjoy your lunch; many of the tables are near a stream. There are restrooms and a road leading off to lesser known parts of the Smokies.