U.S. News picks best mountain towns in America to visit

Time-lapse photo shows traffic at junction of Parkway (US 441) and East Parkway (US 321) in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

U.S. News and World Report has published a list of "Best Mountain Towns to Visit in the USA", based on what it says is its analysis of "a wide collection of . . . expert and user opinions."

Eight Rocky Mountain ski towns made the top 20, but the No. 1 choice was Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in Southern Appalachia, the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the nation's most-visited national park. No. 2 was Bar Harbor, Maine, which isn't really a mountain town because it's on the Atlantic Ocean, but it's on Mount Desert Island and is in the shadow of Cadillac Mountain (which, at 1,530 feet above the sea, doesn't fit the standard definition of mountain, 2,000 feet).

Next are Telluride, Colorado.; Breckenridge, Colo.; Jackson, Wyo.; Park City, Utah; Aspen, Colo.; and Hot Springs, Arkansas, in the Ouachita Mountains but only 600 feet above sea level. No. 9 is Juneau, Alaska, another coastal town but truly mountainous; No. 10 is Mammoth Lakes, California, in the Sierra Nevada.

Nos. 11-21 are Big Sky, Montana (not a town but a resort area); Estes Park, Colo.; Taos, New Mexico.; Homer, Alaska (on Kachemak Bay, across from the south end of the Kenai Mountains); Stowe, Vermont; Helen, Georgia; Hood River, Oregon, where the Columbia River enters the Cascade Mountains; Sun Valley, Idaho; Big Bear Lake, Calif., in the San Bernardino Mountains; Burlington, Vt. (elevation 200, on Lake Champlain, but near the Green Mountains); and Bryson City, North Carolina, on the other side of the Smokies from Gatlinburg.