From the Clingmans Dome trailhead, most hikers head up the paved path to the highest point in Tennessee. For a less-crowded mountain experience, hike just under two miles south on the Forney Ridge Trail to the grassy meadows atop Andrews Bald where the views stretch clear across the Smokies and deep into North Carolina. Along the way, you’ll get a taste of the high-elevation spruce-fir forests that are a specialty of the Southern Appalachians.

A spur road shoots north from the Blue Ridge Parkway, leading to two trailheads here in the Pisgah National Forest. Take the first one, where the Art Loeb Trail crosses the road, for a grand ridge line ramble up to the grassy summit of Black Balsam Knob. The views here on a clear day are magnificent, a 360º panorama that encompasses most of western North Carolina and reaches into Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina.

A short stroll from the end of a Forest Service road leads to a grand vista in the Unaka Mountains, right on the Tennessee–North Carolina state line. The Appalachian Trail crosses this grassy summit as it travels over 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine. Look for trail posts marked with the AT’s classic white blaze and gaze out at the inspiring landscape of mountains and valleys that help to make sure this summit lives up to its name.

Making the hike out from Carvers Gap to this high, open summit means you’ll actually stand atop three Southern Appalachian balds on your adventure. The AT crosses Round Bald and Jane Bald en route to the junction with the spur trail that summits Grassy Ridge Bald. The views along the Roan Massif are fantastic, as are the rhododendron blooms in early summer. On clear days, Grandfather Mountain looms prominently nearby, and you can pick out the high peaks of the Black Mountains to the southwest.

The ridges and craggy outcroppings just southeast of Virginia’s highest peak, Mt Rogers, offer some of the widest mountain views around. Hike the AT up Wilburn Ridge from Massie Gap and you’ll be rewarded with vistas that stretch across southwestern Virginia and into neighboring Tennessee and North Carolina. Keep an eye out for the area’s most famous residents: wild ponies, introduced here in the 1970s to help manage the vegetation and maintain the open scenery.

The most difficult to reach of all the balds on this list, but most hikers find a well-timed hike in June to be completely worth the effort. Flame azaleas bloom in brilliant orange here each summer, and hikers can enjoy the beautiful and fragrant blossoms while surveying Cades Cove far below. A backcountry campsite nearby at Sheep Pen Gap makes for a good overnight spot if you want to extend your visit to this gem of the western Smokies.

A moderate two-mile round-trip hike carries scenery-seekers from the Cherohala Skyway to the highest point in the Unicoi Mountains. The summit offers 360º views of the many neighboring ranges, stretching from North Carolina into Tennessee and Georgia. Since Huckleberry Knob sits outside the boundaries of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and well away from the Blue Ridge Parkway, mountain solitude can be much easier to find here.

One of the region’s best-known and most-loved mountaintops, Max Patch can feel like an island of green grass in a sea of sky on clear, summer days. The views from here are tough to beat, with the Smokies looming to the west and Mt Mitchell and the Black Mountains rising off to the east. The Appalachian Trail crosses over this summit that is a memorable spot for many thru-hikers as they head north following the Tennessee–North Carolina state line.