Laurel Falls
— the waterfall the trail was paved to reach.
Not only on a wall.
Laurel Falls, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“An eighty-foot waterfall in two tiers, split by the footbridge that crosses between them. The trail in is two and a half miles round trip, paved the whole way, which is why it became the busiest hike in the park. Go at first light or skip the middle of the day. The water is loudest after a spring rain. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Laurel Falls sits inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most-visited national park in the United States. The falls drop roughly eighty feet in two tiers, divided by a concrete footbridge that crosses the stream at the middle. The trailhead is off Little River Road in Sevier County, Tennessee, about three and a half miles west of the Sugarlands Visitor Center. The path is 2.4 miles round trip and was paved in the 1960s to handle volume, which has made it the most-walked waterfall hike in the park and a regular stop on family Smokies trips.
The falls take their name from the mountain laurel that blooms along the trail in May, the same shrub that lines the upper Little River drainage. Flow is strongest from late winter through May, when snowmelt and spring rain push the volume high enough that the lower tier sheets across its full width. By late summer the falls thin to two narrower ribbons. The footbridge crosses directly between the upper and lower drops; standing on it puts the upper pool above and the lower veil below, with the spray reaching the deck on big-water days.
A timed-entry parking reservation is required at the Laurel Falls trailhead during the busy season; the park rolled the system out to manage crowding and roadside parking damage. Reservations release through Recreation.gov. The trail is paved but not flat: a steady climb of about 320 feet over 1.3 miles each way, with no railings on the drop-side. The footbridge is narrow and gets crowded; the early morning and late afternoon are the quiet windows. Standard park entry passes are also required as of the 2023 Park It Forward program.
