Travel, for me at least, is not about being with my family. That’s because I live 3,000 miles away from them and only about once a year do I get the chance to go for a visit.
But when I do go home, I like to do something together with them and since they live in Knoxville, the Great Smoky Mountains are a scenic 45-minute drive away and that always provides ample opportunities for a family day trip.
So one day when I was back home, a few of us decided to go to the area’s newest attraction, Gatlinburg’s Sky Bridge. This is a walkway high above the the back of the town. It is 150 feet up in the air and 500 feet above the town of Gatlinburg with a glass bottom halfway across so you can look down at the ground. It’s the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in North America.
Oh, and it sways.
My sister – hardly a daredevil – and her two recently-out-of-college aged boys provided no hesitation to go and I figured it would make for a nice story or two for PubClub.com. Which it did, as you can see here.
Personally, I don’t mind heights. Unless I think I can fall. That’s why I always have a firm grip on a railing at scenic overlooks and why you will never see me, say, strapping myself into a harness to walk around Toronto’s towering CN Tower.
Sky Walk is 680 feet long, which is the equivalent of about three city blocks. Doesn’t seem that intimidating. Until you see it from ground level as we did before we got to it. The people looked like ants going across it.
The funny thing was, to get get there, we had to drive past a small swinging bridge that hangs over a stream in neighboring Townsend. We used to sprint across that thing as kids, stopping only to rock it back and forth. Yet as adults, the thought of walking across a larger and much safer tourist attraction version of a swinging bridge was giving me a few apprehensive thoughts. That’s because as kids, we don’t think about what might happen if something were to go wrong while as adults, we think about all the things that could go wrong when we’re doing activities. That’s either a good thing or a real bummer about the aging process, depending on one’s point of view.
Well I can tell you Sky Bridge – after a few apprehensive first steps – turned out to be a breeze. Even my squeamish sister easily managed to cross it. Heck, she was more frightened of the chair lift to get to it than she was while on the bridge.
Sky Bridge is part of Skylift Park, which has been in Gatlinburg since 1954. After the Gatlinburg fires in 2016, the owners rebuilt the property and created a beautiful overlook (accessible by the chair lifts) and Sky Bridge.
The cost is $19.95 in advance, which is highly recommended because this is the most popular tourist attraction in Gatlinburg and the lines are long, $23.95 if purchased the same day and the tickets are good for all day until the attraction closes at 9:30 at night.
We really enjoyed it and no doubt you will, too.
But the real fun of the day for the four of us was not Sky Bridge but what Sky Bridge provided us as a family. It was our “excuse” for getting out and doing something together.
For instance my sister, dreading the possibility of sitting in traffic and trying to find a parking place in the often-clogged town, decided to park at the Gatlinburg Visitor’s Center. Good move! It was a half-mile walk through woods and along a creek, which was not only scenic but provided us the opportunity to catch up with each other.
After Sky Walk, we walked through Gatlinburg in search of a place to eat and settled down at a nice spot for some burgers while a musician played Rocky Mountain music a few feet away on a small stage.
And, as we all know, traveling is all about having special moments while on the road.
Here is a a link to the Sky Walk’s website and tickets: https://www.gatlinburgskylift.com/skybridge
All of this provided great – and rare for us – family time. It was a very special moment for me while being on the road.
