About Ephraim Bales Place
The Bales Place is the most complete of the farmsteads on Roaring Fork, because the cabin has outbuildings arranged around it as a farm would have been. It is also one of the stops where the road is at its narrowest and the forest closest, so the farm feels hidden.
The farmstead
Ephraim Bales farmed this ground in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and his family's log cabin, barn, corn crib and smokehouse stand in a clearing beside the road. The cabin is a log house with a porch and a stone chimney, close to the stream. The corn crib held the year's corn, the smokehouse the cured pork, and the barn the animals and the hay. They are small buildings, and that is what makes the scale readable: a family of several people lived on what these few structures could hold.
Visiting
- Where: on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, a 5.5-mile one-way loop out of Gatlinburg, between the Grotto Falls trailhead and the Reagan Place.
- Season: the 2026 season runs mid-April to November 29.
- Vehicles: buses, trailers and motor homes are not permitted, and vehicles over 25 feet should not enter.
- Parking: small pull-offs; a parking tag is required for stops over 15 minutes, and tags can't be bought in this area.
- Time to allow: 20 to 30 minutes.
Context
The loop begins with the Noah "Bud" Ogle Place and ends with the Place of a Thousand Drips. In between, the Bales Place is the one that feels most like a family farm, the Reagan Place the one that shows a more prosperous household. Traffic on October weekends can double the time on the loop. Go on a weekday or early in the morning.
Laurel Falls Trail, the other classic short walk near Gatlinburg, is closed and expected to reopen sometime in 2027. Grotto Falls, farther back on the loop, is a good alternative for a walk.
Good to know
- Do I need a parking tag?
- A Park It Forward parking tag ($5 a day, $15 a week or $40 a year) is required for any vehicle parked more than 15 minutes inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Entry is free, and federal passes such as America the Beautiful do not replace the tag.
