Learning Tennessee: Hatfield Knob Elk Viewing Area

I'm really late in making this post, but this was such a neat thing to see that I figure better late than never.

Early last November my brother and I took a trip to see the Hatfield Knob Elk viewing tower.

Although Elk were once native to Tennessee, they disappeared from the state about 150 years ago. Beginning in 2000, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency started reintroducing small populations of Elk into controlled areas in TN. Hatfield Knob, near LaFollette was one of those areas. The viewing tower was constructed by TWRA volunteers.

Getting there was a little bit of an adventure. It was one of those trips when you are never really sure you're in the right place. The directions on the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency website seemed a little vague:

"To reach Hatfield Mountain, drive north out of Lafollette on Highway 25W approximately seven miles to the top of the mountain. Turn left at the red gate located at the top of the mountain (just before the road starts to break over the mountain and go down the back side.) Proceed on the gravel road approximately 3.1 miles to a fork in the road. Take the right fork approximately 1.4 miles to the parking area."

Entrance Gate

The red gate is a metal gate and there are big brown and yellow signs for Sundquist Wildlife Management Area Hatfield Knob Wildlife Viewing Area just on the other side of where you're supposed to turn off the road. The gravel road you take doesn't look like much more than a driveway and there are some warning signs posted at the entrance about mining operations, but there's a small "Elk Viewing Area" sign with an arrow pointing you in.

It's about a 4.5 mile drive in to where the viewing area is. It felt like a lot longer than that. The road is gravel and dirt and was pretty heavily rutted in places. We were driving in an SUV with good sized-tires and pretty high clearance, I wouldn't want to try the drive in a regular car. The speed limit posted on the way in was 10 mph and you really couldn't do any more than that if you wanted to - and given the narrowness of the road, I was happy to poke along. But because we were driving so slow, it took us almost on hour to drive the 4.5 miles.

Mining Operation Signs

About 2/3 of the way to the viewing area, we came up on a mining operation. There was an old school bus with "office" painted over the door and posted with warning signs about blasting. We didn't hear any blasting, but there were several large trucks working on the hillside.

Once you're "there" you'll know it. There's a little parking area with a porta-potty and an information kiosk. There's a metal gate across the path to the viewing area, I guess to keep people from trying to drive out there. Step over or under the gate and take the short trail to the viewing platform.

The Big - and very close - Elk

Keep your eyes (and ears) open while you're walking the trail! As soon as we started down the path, we heard a crazy, prehistoric-sounding noise. "I think that's a sound Elk make," Greg suggested. Creepy. Soon after that, we spotted a young Elk just off the path - I took a couple photos and we turned a bend ... and saw a male Elk with a big rack standing off the path. He couldn't have been more than 20 feet away from us. And he was looking at us! I snapped a couple quick photos and backed carefully away. We noticed that there were Elk tracks all over the trail, so seeing the Elk outside of the viewing tower area must not be all that uncommon.

The tower is a nice big, roofed structure. It has benches to sit on while you watch for the Elk. You can tell you're up on top of a knob - you have a wide open view of the surrounding mountains from up there.

First Sightings From the Tower

We didn't see Elk from the tower right away, but after a few minutes a group of them came walking across the field. They never came very close to the tower, but we watched them travel from one side of the field to the other. And the male let out a few more of his bellowing bugle calls. I was happy that I had a zoom lens for my camera. Anyone thinking about coming out to the tower should consider bringing binoculars or a camera with a good, long zoom lens.

It was a fun trip and I'm glad I got to see the Elk, particularly those two we met on the trail.

There are more Elk in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Information at the Tennessee Watchable Wildlife site