Cumberland Gap National Historical Park
Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia
Tonight
🌗 46% moon
6.9 h fully dark
Crowds
moderate
Open today
Open
Entrance
Free entry
Temporary Closure of Pinnacle Road - June 25
Pinnacle Road will be closed on Thursday, June 25, from 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for maintenance work.
Water Unavailable at Hensley Settlement
Water is temporarily unavailable at Hensley Settlement.
Little Yellow Creek Bridge Closure - Construction Underway
Work to replace the Little Yellow Creek Bridge on Bartlett Park Road has begun. Bartlett Park remains open and accessible, but visitors will see and hear construction activities. The road and areas south of the bridge, including Marsee Cemetery, will not be accessible during construction.
Bartlett Park Restrooms Closed
The restrooms at Bartlett Park are closed until further notice due to damage from a large fallen tree.
Cumberland Gap was the first great gateway to the west. Come follow the path of bison, Native Americans, longhunters, and pioneers. Walk where 300,000 people crossed the Appalachians to settle America. Explore 85 miles of trails and 14,000 acres of wilderness. Stand in 3 states at once. Explore a cave, see Hensley Settlement, or camp under the stars. Come find your connection to Cumberland Gap.
Activities
Topics
No entrance fee.
Hours & seasons
The park is open 24 hours a day to pedestrian and cyclist, weather permitting. Some services and facilities have separate hours, however; please see descriptions of those facilities elsewhere.
Generally open:
winterspringsummerfallHours are reported by the park — verify before you go.
📞 6062482817
✉ cuga_interpretation@nps.govConditions
Quietest months (fewer crowds): Jan, Feb, Dec
Typical crowds: moderate
Weather now: ⛅ Partly cloudy, 80°F
☁️ 84°/69°
☁️ 84°/72°
🌦️ 88°/68°
Typical monthly recreation visits · NPS avg 2023–2025 — orange months are the quietest by crowds.
Quietest months
Relative crowds by month — lighter is quieter; ringed months are the calmest by crowds.
Jan
29%
Feb
47%
Mar
63%
Apr
79%
May
84%
Jun
93%
Jul
92%
Aug
82%
Sep
75%
Oct
100%
Nov
58%
Dec
48%
Log a sky reading
Measured the sky with an SQM meter or app? Add your reading (16 = city glow … 22 = pristine). Opt in under “Travelers like you” to share it on the community leaderboard.
Things to do
Hensley Settlement Tours
Gap Cave Tour
Campgrounds
Wilderness Road Campground ↗ · 150 sites · hookups · dump station
Visitor centers
Cumberland Gap National Historical Park Visitor Center
Daniel Boone Visitor Information Station
Accessibility
4 audio-described place(s)
Reported by the park — verify before you go.
Not an official safety source — always defer to NPS.gov and rangers for life-safety decisions.
By the numbers
A visual read on Cumberland Gap National Historical Park — its character, trails, sky, and weather.
Park fingerprint
How this park scores across the dimensions travelers care about.
Trail difficulty
Difficulty mix across this park's trails.
3-day forecast
Daily high and low temperatures (°F).
Passport stamps
Mark the stamps you've collected — they show in your memory and along your routes.
🎫 Cumberland Gap National Historical Park Visitor Center
Places to see
Cumberland Gap
audio
Cumberland Gap Pinnacle Overlook
audio
Gap Cave
audio
Hensley Settlement
Iron Furnace
audioAudio & media
🎧 Gardening at the Settlement ↗ · 3 mintranscript
🎧 Putting it Back Together ↗ · 2 mintranscript
🎧 Courtship on the Mountain ↗ · 4 mintranscript
🎬
🖼
Learn more
Nicknamed "the Fort Stanwix Land Lottery and Sweepstakes Treaty" by James H. Merrill in his book Into the American Woods: Negotiations on the Pennsylvania Frontier, the 1768 Boundary Line Treaty of Fort Stanwix was controversial before the ink dried on the parchment on November 2.
In 2018, six talented National Park Service employees were awarded the Freeman Tilden Award for their amazing and innovative interpretive programs.
A partnership between Georgia State University and the NPS Paleontology Program has enabled more focused paleontological resource support in parks in the Southeast Region of the U.S. During the past several years students mentored by Dr. Christy Visaggi have helped to complete paleontological resource inventories in several parks in the southeast region uncovering the fossil records of these parks.
Find out how batty Cumberland Gap National Historic Park is for bats!
To make management decisions at White Rocks, staff at Cumberland Gap NHP needed information on whether the cliffs are used by two at-risk wildlife species: Allegheny woodrats and eastern small-footed bats. A species inventory told them what they needed to know.
Enjoy a fun activity and learn about caves even when you can't get out to a park. In this activity you will build your own cave and learn how to make it like a "real" natural cave. Find out about cave formations and wildlife, and how to be safe and care for caves. New "Blanket Cave National Youth Parks" are springing up all across America! Join the fun!
This finding aid describes the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) Southest Region Collection, part of the NPS History Collection.
In 2008, scientists from the Cumberland Piedmont Network found a concerning trend: E. coli levels were too high. The source needed to be identified and addressed for the health and safety of the thousands of humans and animals that enjoyed the park. The network's long-term water quality monitoring program not only helped to identify the issue, but it also provided the tools to evaluate the solution.
Ranger School
Park-grounded courses you can learn with the Ranger.
How Cumberland Gap National Historical Park connects
This park's activities, topics, location, and on-the-ground places — one hop in the graph. Drag to explore; click an activity, topic, or related park to follow it.
Park
Activity
Topic
State
Campground
VisitorCenter
PassportStamp
Trail
ThingToDo
Alert
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