Sight · Great Smoky Mountains National Park
A restored 1850s cabin rewards the walk through Little Cataloochee.
Overview
Cook Cabin is a restored 1850s log home in the former Little Cataloochee community, reached on foot on Little Cataloochee Trail. Getting there is a real outing: the historic route is about five miles round trip, with several steep sections. Choose it if you want the area's settlement history; it isn't a roadside stop.
Parkwolf’s verdictWorth the walkMap
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Great Smoky Mountains Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Great Smoky Mountains National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Great Smoky Mountains audio tourRecorded for this area
Jarvis Palmer House“Jarvis Palmer House is coming up, the yellow home with a white kitchen wing. Beneath the siding are two log cabins built around eighteen sixty, sharing one roof with an open passage between them.”
Plays on the road 1.7 mi from Cook Cabin in the Parkwolf Great Smoky Mountains Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
The trail follows an old road that once connected Big and Little Cataloochee. Hannah Cabin, the Little Cataloochee Church and cemetery, and former homesites are part of the wider walk. Cook Cabin makes the most sense as one piece of a spread-out community, rather than a stop on its own.
Dan Cook built the cabin in the 1850s as families settled Little Cataloochee. After it was vandalized, workers dismantled it in the 1970s and restored it on its original site in 1999. A volunteer project rebuilt its three-sided porch in 2017, while trees have grown back across much of the old farm ground.
The cabin sits in a clearing, so step back enough to include the long porch and stone chimney in one picture. The split-rail fence makes a useful foreground and sets the building in its old farm setting.
Wildlife
1,569 sightingsBlack BearMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
900 sightingsElkMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
13 sightingsBald EagleMost seen around 9 AMSighting map
142 sightingsTimber RattlesnakeMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
26 sightingsBobcatMost seen around 8 PMSighting map
42 sightingsRiver OtterMost seen around 7 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Great Smoky Mountains. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
ModerateLong Bunk Trail9.2 mi · 6 hr · 1.6 mi awayA long walk past a cemetery, homestead traces, and creek crossings.
ModerateCaldwell Fork Trail6.3 mi · 4 hr · 1.9 mi awayCreekside miles past old farm traces and a school site
ModerateBoogerman Loop Trail7.5 mi · 5 hr · 1.9 mi awayCreek crossings, giant old-growth trees, and mountain homestead traces
ModeratePalmer Creek Trail9 mi · 6 hr · 2.1 mi awayA long creekside climb to the high mountain road
ChallengingLittle Cataloochee Trail12.1 mi · 6.5 hr · 2.2 mi awayA long, rolling hike to cabins, a church, and mountain history
ChallengingPretty Hollow Gap Trail10.9 mi · 7.5 hr · 2.2 mi awayFollow a creek into a steep climb toward the Smokies ridge.
EasyCataloochee Horse Trail3.1 mi · 1.5 hr · 2.2 mi awayA creekside walk along the old road through Big Cataloochee.
ModerateBig Fork Ridge Loop Trail9.3 mi · 5.5 hr · 2.9 mi awayRugged 9.3-mile loop with creek crossings and a Balsam Mountain view.
Sight · 0.6 mi awayLittle Cataloochee Baptist ChurchAn 1889 chapel with its original 400-pound bell rewards the hike
Sight · 1.1 mi awayJim Hannah CabinA hike-in cabin tells Little Cataloochee’s farming story.
Sight · 1.7 mi awayJarvis Palmer HouseTwo log cabins under one roof became a Cataloochee homestead.
Sight · 1.9 mi awayWill Messer BarnA quick stop for a piece of Little Cataloochee's history.
Campground · 2 mi awayCataloochee CampgroundCamp in a remote valley of old homesteads and elk country.
Campground · 2.1 mi awayCataloochee Horse CampSeven sites for horse camping beside Cataloochee Creek.
Sight · 2.1 mi awayPalmer ChapelA small valley church with a big role in Cataloochee's story.
Sight · 2.2 mi awayBeech Grove SchoolA 1901 schoolhouse with a local story about fire.Parkwolf’s Great Smoky Mountains ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
