Parking
From US-321, take Baxter Road about half a mile to the signed Maddron Bald Trailhead. Parking is limited. A Great Smoky Mountains parking tag is required when your car stays longer than 15 minutes.
Overview
About Maddron Bald Trail
Why go
- Old-growth woods and the historic Baxter Cabin on the lower trail
- A high heath bald with views toward Mount Guyot, Old Black, and Inadu Knob
Heads up
- A hard 7.2-mile climb each way; returning to the car makes it 14.4 miles
- Several unbridged creek crossings can be awkward after heavy rain
Maddron Bald Trail is a 7.2-mile point-to-point hike from the signed Baxter Road trailhead to the Snake Den Ridge Trail junction. It climbs through forest and creek hollows to a high heath bald, then ends at a trail junction rather than a road. Allow about six to seven hours one way. If you leave a car at Baxter Road, hiking to the end and back makes this a 14.4-mile, full-day outing.
Parkwolf’s verdictIs this the hike for you?Map & elevation
The route
Loading the Great Smoky Mountains map
Full mapElevation1,923–5,371 ft
Plan your hike
Before you go
Parking
Safety
7 active Great Smoky Mountains alerts
- ClosureHurricane Helene trail damage and backcountry restrictionsHurricane Helene damage has restricted backcountry trail access; avoid damaged crossings and observe trail-specific limits.Official details
- CautionBear-related trail, campsite, and road restrictionsBear activity has closed trails, a shelter, and campsites and restricted pedestrian access on Cherokee Orchard Road; stay out of closed areas and follow vehicle-only rules.Official details
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Great Smoky Mountains Tour Guide
Your drive to Maddron Bald Trail, narrated.
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 tourMore stories near here in the app
- A Woodpecker's Sap Wells
- A Nest That Can Stretch
- The Kingfisher's Next Move
- The Frog That Freezes
- 200 audio storiesacross Great Smoky Mountains’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Black Bear, Elk, Bald Eagle, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 197 trails, 137 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“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!!!!”
Trail guide
Hiking Maddron Bald Trail
Start here, or choose the shorter grove tripThe trailhead is on Baxter Road, about half a mile from US-321, and parking is limited.
The trailhead is on Baxter Road, about half a mile from US-321, and parking is limited. A park parking tag is required if you leave your car for more than 15 minutes. Dogs aren't allowed on this trail; service animals are permitted. If you mainly want the old-growth grove, the shorter Albright Grove outing follows Maddron Bald Trail for about 2.9 miles, then takes the 0.7-mile loop and returns to the trailhead for a 6.5-mile trip.
The cabin and the groveThe first couple of miles follow a broad gravel track through the woods. About 0.
The first couple of miles follow a broad gravel track through the woods. About 0.7 mile in, look for Willis Baxter Cabin just off the trail. It was built around 1889 from one chestnut tree as a wedding gift for Baxter's son. At roughly 1.2 miles, Maddron Bald meets Gabes Mountain and Old Settlers trails; the family cemetery of Lawson Maddron, the minister whose name the trail and bald carry, is nearby. Around 2.9 miles in, the Albright Grove loop visits a patch of old-growth forest, with huge buttressed trunks, tulip poplars, and Fraser magnolias. The grove is named for Horace Albright, the second director of the National Park Service.
The climb beyond the groveKeep going past the grove and the trail narrows and climbs for about four more miles toward…
Keep going past the grove and the trail narrows and climbs for about four more miles toward Snake Den Ridge. Several creek crossings are unbridged and usually mean picking your way over rocks; high water after heavy rain can make them much harder. The climb steepens after the upper campsite, then winds through thick rhododendron before the shorter heath growth opens up.
On the heath baldMaddron Bald is a long, brushy summit heath, not a wide grassy clearing.
Maddron Bald is a long, brushy summit heath, not a wide grassy clearing. The shrubs leave only scattered rocky openings, but from them you can look toward Mount Guyot, Old Black, and Inadu Knob. For a photo, include the narrow path with spruce and heath around it; that shows what this bald is actually like better than a frame of distant ridges alone.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Great Smoky Mountains
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.
