Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Maloney Point

We hit Maloney Point up again for sunrise - not as spectacular as yesterday but definitely still fun in its own right. A had injured her eye so I was learning how to drive her Prius. It is enough different from other cars that it was jarring to learn its quirks while driving windy roads.

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3


Laurel Falls

Laurel Falls was one destination I was looking forward to revisiting. I had last visited it in 8th grade during “Field Ecology” - and we arrived at night. I’m pleased to note that my recollections are similar though I’m surprised we hiked it in the dark (no flashlights - on purpose) Hilariously, I just discovered in re-reading my journal that we had a ‘short drive to the campsite’ - I’ll bet you good money that we stayed at Elkmont. HAH.



Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 3

On the Road Again…

We hit the road after that - I am glad we switched hikes - we were originally going to do Abrams Falls on Monday morning. We had a nice, relatively uneventful drive home and I proved that I still have my long road trip stamina!


In reflection - I wish we had had more time in the park because there’s several other places and hikes I’d love to have gone on. As it turns out, I tackled the Chimney Tops - a 3.8 mile fairly ambitious hike as an 8th grader and it kicked my butt back then. I’d like to tackle it again - but I’m doing some training hikes/runs before I go again.

The Smoky Mountains have at least 5 different types of forests, hundreds of waterfalls and oddly enough, is one of the most polluted parks. It’s also one of the larger and it saddened me to see how much graffiti was left behind. Next time, I won’t let 20 years go by before my next visit.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Maloney Point

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

I’m grateful that A was all for chasing sunrises. We planned to head to Roaring Fork Nature Trail but realized that we were just going downhill. She spotted a pull off and we were richly rewarded. We were treated to a beautiful sunrise. And as it was still early, we decided to head to the Roaring For Motor Nature Trail since it is a one-way loop and pretty popular. This proved to be a smart choice. We got to lazily meander, stop as often as we want at a bunch of old, beautifully weathered buildings and enjoy the sheer lack of crowds.

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Cades Cove

The Cades Cove loop is where we encountered our “worst” traffic. It was slow going and we saw some people do some stupid things - like open their sunroof and stand up in it. Mind you, we were going like 2-5 miles per hour, but still. And yes, they were a passenger. The views were nice but it was morning, and the sun was harsh. We simply enjoyed the meandering road until we got to our destination.

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Abrams Falls

Abrams Falls was our goal for that morning. A moderate 5.2 mile roundtrip to “the most voluminous waterfall in the park” was well worth it. It highlighted to me how out of shape I am (shame on me) but I had fun none-the-less. It was one of those fun hikes that unfortunately I had to watch my feet almost all the time to prevent disaster. I had fun none-the-less and enjoyed the gorgeous view once i got there. It was so popular that it was hard to get a good photo of it. I was pretty done for when we got back to the car but our next destination was well worth the detour.

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Cable Mill & surrounding Buildings

We visited the other active mill in the Smokies, though it was not active on that particular day. However, they were demonstrating many other things such as blacksmith but what was really neat was seeing them make sorghum molasses. They used a mule-run mill in order to squeeze the syrup from the cane and then boiled it in a nearby tub. We sampled the pear butter while there and took home fruit butters and molasses as souvenirs!

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Foothill Parkway


It looked mildly promising for sunset and had asked a ranger for a good location to view sunsets - she mentioned Foothill Parkway. We never did find out which turnoff she mentioned, but we found one. A lot of bikers go up and down Foothill Parkway so we had some entertainment while waiting for the relatively lackluster sunset. Arriving back at our campsite well after dark, we decide it is definitely not worth in setting up the tent and slept in the car one last time.

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 2

Day 3 was mostly driving, but we did manage to catch a sunrise and a hike before hitting the road. Stay tuned!

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Great Smoky Mountains, Day 0 & 1

I hadn’t been to the Smoky Mountains since 8th grade as part of the Field Ecology trip. I had the relatively last minute opportunity to join my roommate in a three day weekend trip to the Great Smoky Mountains of TN and NC!

Day 0.5 - (Friday)

Regular work day for us then on the road around 5:45pm. All packed and ready to go. Surprised at the amount of traffic on the roads around 8 or 9pm. Guess we’re not the only ones with this idea. Eek.

Day 1 - (Sat)

Arrive VERY early morning - 3am or so local time. Found a place to park the car and dozed until 5:30am because though we are tired, we want to stalk the sunrises and sunsets.

We drive to Newfoundland Gap Point because it is the first thing we “see” that doesn’t have trees obscuring the dawning sky. A goes back to sleep while I stalk the less than impressive but still pretty sunrise.

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1


After both taking a further nap until a much more reasonable hour, we then decide to head to Clingman’s Dome. Clingman’s Dome is a short but punishing hike because it is fairly vertical. When you get to the top, you get to this structure which I swear looks like it was dropped there by aliens. It is really cool to walk up the slow spiral to the top for 360° views of the Smoky Mountains. 

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

I checked my notes from 8th grade and we did not attempt this hike because it was too cloudy. I was SURE I would’ve remembered that structure clearly. It is so bizarre. Also - that hike. YEESH. At least I had pretty flowers to look at while I caught my breath:

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

We drove up and down the Newfoundland Gap Road to Cherokee and back again. And watched for impending clouds since it was forecasted to rain during our entire trip.

Mingus Mill is one of two functioning grist mills in the park. This one uses a water-powered turbine which was temporarily diverted in a beautiful runoff next to the mill. One can buy cornmeal and whole wheat flour that has been milled on site which is neat!

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

On our way back, we managed a quick visit at a farmstead with cool buildings before it started pouring rain.

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Just before the rain, we managed to catch these impressive clouds:

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Cataloochee Valley is located on the North Caroline side of the park, and is accessed by an extremely narrow road. Thankfully we didn’t encounter too much traffic and caravanned with a few other unknown cars. 

Cataloochee was a lovely alley with lots of wide open fields. We were rewarded by the sight of a few groups of elk - some easier to see than others. At one point, one of the bulls was vocalizing quite loudly and chasing the females in his group. Another bull answered from another field. That was really neat. Sunset was sadly a bust as well and we had a long drive to our campsite. Too tired to do anything like setting up a tent (plus we didn’t want to deal with a wet tent), we slept in the car again.

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Smoky Mountains, Day 1

Stay tuned for Days 2 and 3!