Davenport Shelter — Great Smoky Mountains National Park

This is a beautiful shelter on the Appalachian Trail. The trail from the parking lot to the shelter is at least 3 miles, so this is a true backpacking trip. The shelter is both logs and stone, lots of personality. It sleeps at least 10 people. There’s a great fire pit, nice water spigot nearby, places to hang bags, caged in to protect from bears. If you are day hiking in, consider being a trail angel and bring some treats for the thru-hikers :)

Coming upon Davenport shelter we decided to eat a snack and rest up. The shelter has a cage around it to keep out the bears. (They all did in the smokies until people started feeding bears to coax them to stay for photos. Then the bears showed up to much. It was like a reverse zoo. Now the fences are gone except for this one so it was good to see) I might avoid setting up your tent outside of the fence at this shelter. One of my hiking partners sat in the cage and pulled out his travel guitar. We ate to the sound of beautiful acoustic Bach music. What a perfect day.

While we did not see any bears at the shelter, we read in the hiker's log that a black snake dropped right onto a woman in the middle of the night. This was the night before we arrived. Anything is to be expected out in the Appalachian wilderness.

The hike out of the Smokies leads right to a hostel with bunks, showers, laundry and food available. A welcome location in the wildness of this area. Don't miss out on hiking through the Smokies!