Little Greenbrier Trail

The trailhead is just after you enter the park at the Wear's Cove Gap entrance (point A).  This is an unmarked and little used entrance to the park out of Wear's Valley.  To access the entrance, turn from Wear's Valley Road onto Lyon Springs Road (point D) and follow the road to the top of the ridge and the park entrance (point A).  As an alternative, enter the park at the Townsend Y, turn left on Little River Road, and follow the road to Metcalf Bottoms.  At Metcalf Bottoms, cross the one lane bridge (point E) and continue on Little Greenbrier Road to the park entrance at the top of the ridge (point A).  Little Greenbrier Road may also be called Wear Cove Gap Road.  In any case, the name of the road changes at the park boundary.  The trailhead is just inside the park boundary (point A), and there is very limited parking.

It is 1.9 miles from the trailhead (point A) to Little Brier Gap (point B), and another 2.4 miles to the intersection with the Laurel Falls Trail (point C).  The trail follows the park boundary, and indeed at times is slightly outside the park.  You will occasionally see boundary markers as the trail goes in and out of the park.

In slightly more detail, the trailhead is just after you enter the park at the Wear's Cove Gap entrance (point A).  It is 1.9 miles from the trailhead (point A) to Little Brier Gap (point B), and another 2.4 miles to the intersection with the Laurel Falls Trail (point C).  The trail follows the park boundary, and indeed at times is slightly outside the park.  You will occasionally see boundary markers as the trail goes in and out of the park.  Because it adheres so closely to the park boundary, the trail can be a little difficult see on the topographic map.

Wear's Cove Gap entrance to the park.

Wear's Cove Gap entrance to the park in context with the parking area and the trailhead.

Trailhead sign.

Trailhead sign in context with the beginning of the trail.

Trail intersection sign at Little Brier Gap.

Trail intersection sign at Little Brier Gap in close up.

Trail intersection sign for the Little Brier Gap trail with a trailhead at Metcalf Bottoms (alternate route to same location).

Unmarked (and apparently unnamed) trail that immediately exits the park onto private property and goes down through Cove Spring Hollow to Wear's Valley.

Continuation of Little Brier Trail (after making a right turn) up towards the Laurel Creek Trail.

Back whence we came.  The fork up and to the right is the Little Greenbrier trail I hiked today.  The fork down and to the left is the Little Brier Gap trail with a trailhead at Metcalf Bottoms that I hiked a few weeks ago.

The trail is advertised as having lots of great views.  I didn't find it that way, perhaps because the foliage is still so heavy in September.  This is one view I was able to find back down into Wear's Valley.  So this is looking from the park boundary north out of the park.

This is an experiment using video to do a 360 degree pan of the intersection of several trails at Little Brier Gap.  The trails shown in the video correspond to the still pictures above.  Unfortunately, I do not have audio to go along with the video.

360 degree pan of the intersection of several trails at Little Brier Gap from Jerry Bryan on Vimeo.

It was a relatively warm day in February, after some unusually bitter cold weather.  I just wanted to get out into the mountains a bit.  It was not an otherwise purposeful hike, for example I was not trying to get in a certain number of miles or anything like that.  I started in the late afternoon, so I turned around shortly before reaching Little Greenbrier Gap to be sure to get off the trail before dark.

It was a warm, gray day in early spring.  This was my first time to go beyond the first trail intersection with the Little Brier Gap Trail and continue on to the end of the trail at the intersection with the Laurel Falls Trail.  So the total hike was about 8.6 miles.

Little Greenbrier Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park - trailhead, 3/20/2015 from Jerry Bryan on Vimeo.

Little Greenbrier Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park - trailhead (addendum), 3/20/2015 from Jerry Bryan on Vimeo.