GATLINBURG, Tenn. -- In any other situation we would have been gnashing our teeth at the glacial pace of this caravan of cars, silently cursing the driver at the head of the line, glaring at a speedometer that rarely broke 20 miles per hour. But we were following an auto route designed for dawdling, the 11-mile Cades Cove Loop Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The road circles the ''cove," which in Smoky Mountain vernacular is a valley between mountains or ridges. Families settled in Cades Cove, most of them on farms, in the early 1800s. The National Park Service has preserved many of the houses, churches, and other buildings of that time, clustering several in the Cable Mill Historic Area. But the road's biggest draw is the wildlife in the valley, especially near dusk. As we puttered along the one-way loop, hearing only the soft whine of cars in low gear, we saw more than a dozen deer and a gray fox.
There are plenty of arduous recreational opportunities in the park. There are some 32 trails here, ranging from the half-mile ''easy" trip to Juney Whank Falls to the 13-mile Spence Field/Russell Field loop, rated ''strenuous."
But visitors who are unable or unwilling to lace up their hiking boots will find a generous menu of sights accessible by automobile. There are more than 300 miles of road in the 800-square-mile park. Most are paved, and even the gravel roads are kept in suitable condition for passenger cars.
Most of the roads were established routes to settlements when the park service began cobbling together parcels in the 1930s, said park spokesman Bob Miller. The Civilian Conservation Corps built and upgraded several routes, but the mission has since shifted, he said, from development to preservation. The park service developed the 7-mile road to Clingmans Dome, but, Miller said, ''I don't know if that would happen today."
To start your visit, pick up the Smokies Starter Kit at the Sugarlands Visitors Center. It includes an auto touring map and guide, and detailed brochures on the Cades Cove Loop Road, Newfound Gap Road, and Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.
Newfound Gap Road, also US Route 441, is the main road through the park and offers the most dramatic panoramic views. It winds for 29 miles between the Sugarlands Visitors Center near Gatlinburg and the Oconaluftee Visitors Center near Cherokee, N.C., and climbs from 1,465 feet at Sugarlands to 5,048 feet at Newfound Gap, on the state line.
We were impressed by the Chimney Tops, twin summits of quartzite and hard slate that early settlers said resembled the stone chimneys of their houses. Beyond the Chimney Tops, the road follows the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River for a few miles, and the sound of rushing water creates a pleasant white noise. From the Morton Overlook, at an elevation of 4,837 feet, you can look back on the sliver of asphalt you have just traversed.
At Newfound Gap the Appalachian Trail crosses the road, and you can take a short walk on this storied path, if only to say you've done so. Straddling the state line at Newfound Gap is the Rockefeller Memorial, built as a tribute to the Rockefeller Foundation for the $5 million donation that launched the creation of the national park.
From Newfound Gap, a 7-mile spur road takes visitors to Clingmans Dome, at 6,642 feet the highest point in the park, and also the highest point in Tennessee. It is here that we understood how the Great Smoky Mountains got their name. The view stretches into multiple tiers of peaks, ridges, and valleys, each layer getting bluer and hazier in the distance. The closer peaks have a chiseled look, and appear to be covered with nubbly green upholstery. We learn from our booklet that the distinctive ''V" shapes are characteristic of water-carved valleys, as opposed to a ''U" shape, which would indicate sculpting by ice.
Here, the spruce-fir forest looks as though it has been ravaged by fire, but in fact the trees have been killed by the balsam woolly adelgid, a nonnative pest that in the last 50 years has destroyed most of the mature firs in the park. The trees look like so many gray matchsticks, topped with a burst of green. The park service is trying to control the adelgids with a soap solution harmless to other plants and animals, but it is an expensive and laborious process.
The Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail spirits motorists off the highway in Gatlinburg along a narrow road that winds for 6 miles in a forest rich with streams and waterfalls. Once-inhabited cabins appear suddenly in a clearing, such as the two-room structure in which Ephraim and Minerva Bales raised nine children at the turn of the last century.
In the easternmost section of the park are two more automobile tours: The Balsam Mountain and Heintooga Ridge trip offers some of the best displays of summer and fall wildflowers in the Smokies, and the Heintooga Picnic Area overlooks the vast wilderness where some Cherokee Indians hid to escape being forced to leave on the devastating journey that became known as the Trail of Tears. The village of Cataloochee, accessible by a 2-mile narrow gravel road, is said to be the best place in the park to see historic frame buildings from the late-19th and early-20th centuries and also a prime spot for viewing deer, elk, wild turkey, and other wildlife.
Should you want to get out of the car -- and you probably will -- take advantage of the park's ''quiet walkways," small parking areas abutting a short trail to encourage motorists to stop and stroll.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
107 Park Headquarters Road, Gatlinburg, Tenn.
865-436-1200
www.nps.gov/grsm
Visitors centers at Sugarlands, Oconaluftee, and Cades Cove are open year-round except Christmas Day.
Ellen Albanese can be reached at ealbanese@globe.com. 
