Smokey Mountain adventures...

This past weekend I was traveling from Georgia to Tennessee. What a better way to get there than to go thru the Great Smokey Mountain National Park? Given that we had a few hours during the first day free, and a few hours on the second day as well, it became my responsibility to plan how we were spending that time. When planning trips there are several factors you should keep in mind; obviously travel time, to wherever you are going. Also the time the hike itself will take. I use this as my general base, the avg person hikes 3mph on a hike that is considered strenuous or moderate I knock that down to 2mph. Now, in this planning you have to also be careful because if you are prone to stopping for a lot of pictures (like I can be) that will really slow your pace down, and unless you plan on getting to your destination then turning right around you might want to add some time there too.
I figured we had about 2 hours of hiking so I picked a nice easy 1.7 mile hike that would take to a waterfall. It gave use a great opportunity to take lots of pictures, enjoy our walk and stop for a while at the falls.
We arrived earlier than expected which was great! It meant we had even more time than planned. We found our first cascade with no problem, it was right on the main trail.
We also found our target waterfall in a great amount of time
























We decided that since we still had so much time we would wander a bit farther. We wandered over bridges and thru the woods... eventually we decided that the trail we were following obviously went in this direction over here... Well "A" trail did but it was not "our" trail... it was however a great uphill hike that wore me out and made me very hungry.
I probably should have know better when most of the trail looked like this... (Pictured left)
But eventually we gave up and doubled back, we had been having second thoughts for a while and the turning point for us was finding a small graveyard in the middle of the trail (not pictured, it felt disrespectful to take a picture of these graves)
Instead we headed back and found a great little place for the lunch M had packed for us. I dubbed it "lunch rock". The view from it is pictured below.














After lunch it was time to head out, I do have to say this driving thru the Great Smokey Mountains is beautiful. But for the rest of the day there was work to be done. More adventures tomorrow...

And its tomorrow.... That went a lot faster for you than it did for me, but you missed out on a fun night of drinking too. Sorry.




I spent part of the next day sitting on a bench doing some writing and thinking and this little guy came up to say "HI"





We head back into the park and decide to grab a paper map from the visitor site (I had downloaded the pdf maps to my I-pad which was great for driving) then we realize where our trailhead is and we head back out of the park and thru town and right by our hotel... then we find our trailhead, now on this day there is a massive storm cell moving across the mid southern states, not the tornado one but it didn't look too pleasant. What do we do about it you ask??? Nothing, its a giant storm what can we do except go hiking... So we did, and a great hike it was. For anyone headed that way check out "rainbow falls".

I could tell you all of the details but really there are just too many to mention on this trail, the whole thing was beautiful. I will give you a few of the pictures though.

 Multiple waterfalls.

 There we some great tiny bridges. 

 Lots of hiking by streams but no hiking in them.

I will also mention that on the way up the trail was clear, and on the way back a tree had fallen crossing the path. No, we didn't hear it... To close I will say, it didn't storm on us not even a little...


"No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause."
~Theodore Roosevelt