The Appalachian Trail is one of the longest continuous footpaths in the world, winding more than 2,150 miles through 14 states. Few stretches are more remote or difficult than the section through the Great Smokies, where the trail follows some of the highest ridges in the Appalachians and parallels the Tennessee-North Carolina border for 70 miles. Hiking the trail is not easy, and neither was building it. In the Smokies during the 1930s, hundreds of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers cut rock, felled trees, and built shelters, shaping the path that extends like a narrow ribbon from Georgia to Maine.