A unique route linking historic homesteads yields an exciting Smokies adventure for hikers and history buffs alike.

Weaving through gnarled limbs of rhododendron, I mop the sweat from my forehead and swat a cloud of gnats. We've only hiked 10 minutes, and my bare shins are crosshatched from bashing through these shiny, knee-high bushes. It's hard to believe this tangled forest was once a tamed landscape of farm fields and apple trees. Near Cosby Campground in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, farmer and 64-year Smokies resident Jimmy Bryant and I are bushwhacking to the homesite of Bryant's grandparents, who lived on this land until the early 1930s.

Glennie and Elbert Carver were among the 4,000 people displaced by the federal government when it established Great Smoky Mountains National Park on 500,000 acres of the East's largest forest in 1934. Like their neighbors, the Carvers had planted corn and raised their children here, amongst the hazy blue hills and crystalline waterfalls. When the feds came calling, many settlers reluctantly sold their land, some dispersing to small plots outside the park boundary or to nearby towns.

These days, 9 million people visit the nation's busiest national park, which boasts huge tracts of resurgent forest and grand, misty-mountain views. But few–if any–realize that entire communities once thrived where now only backcountry travelers go.