Gatlinburg ... a Practically Unplanned Adventure! June 27 - July 5, 2009 About This Page:

[chezp]

What a lovely trail. Such a shame you put your camera away and then missed the deer - isn't that always the way?

[christiejay]

Originally Posted by rhinohunter

I know I am rushing you; but, were you able to go see any of the shows at the theaters along the strip in Pigeon Forge?

Not this time. Last time we saw Fixin' 2 Rain, which was loosely based on the Noah's Ark story. (I guess it didn't do too well, as it only lasted about a year or maybe less.) There are a couple of shows we would like to see, but again with the budget trip ... trying to hold costs down as much as possible, we chose to forgo a show this time around. Of course, if we HAD been willing to sit through an "Owner's Update" meeting at the resort they would have given us show tickets. We just didn't want it that bad. We are going to Branson at Thanksgiving and I'm trying to decide on a show to see while there.

Originally Posted by chezp

Such a shame you put your camera away and then missed the deer - isn't that always the way?

Yes, and unfortunately I had another similar incident at the end of the trip involving a bear!

[christiejay]

Continuing with Day 3 - June 29

Once we arrived at the Visitor Center we were no longer without company, as the Park was very crowded today. We visited the restrooms out back, then went inside. Jay and Joshua looked at the exhibits while I browsed the shop. I didn't get too much here, I guess because we had already been to the shop in Sevierville. I got a 2010 calendar and a book about a local resident (Wiley Oakley, for those of you who might be familiar) for my parents, and some trail map brochures for the Cade's Cove, Deep Creek and Mt. LeConte areas of the park for us. This is the same Mt. LeConte map I had already got for my dad yesterday. I paid for these things and we headed back to the truck.

Having finished what we wanted to do in the Sugarlands area, we got on Newfound Gap Road (along with a lot of other people ) to head toward Clingman's Dome - with a couple of other stops along the way. First was the Chimneys picnic area. We stopped here on our last visit, to walk on the Cove Hardwood Nature Trail. Today we were bypassing the trail and just eating lunch here. It is a really nice picnic area, right by the water. We pulled around to get a site on the river side, and started getting out our food. The first thing Jay said was that a bear had been here - you could see its muddy paw prints on the seat of our picnic table!

Or it could have been a large dog. But the bear story sounds better!

And as soon as we pulled our food out and started eating a beggar came calling -



A chipmunk! He was pretty fearless, so I guess he gets fed quite a bit here. Jay tossed him a little bit of his sandwich, as I reminded him he shouldn't be doing that.

I loved the view from our table.






I walked up to the restroom, then we went down to the river to look around. Actually the water had split around a small "island" and the side we were on was dry. So we had to walk through that to the little "island" and had a good time looking around over there.






I love this one.






It always amazes me, and you can see this throughout the National Park, how the tree roots grow over and around the rocks.




On our way back up the bank, Jay spotted these marks on one of the rocks and said it was bear claw marks. Now I know bears come to the river to fish, and I guess one could have scratched up a rock, but I was starting to wonder if Jay just simply had bears on the brain. First the picnic table, now a rock!





Behind Joshua is the little "island" we walked to.

We got back in the truck to drive up to our next stop, the Chimney Tops Trail, connecting over to Road Prong Trail to see a waterfall. This was something I wanted to do last time, but the trailhead parking lot had been full, so I used that as an excuse to save it for this trip. Here's a picture I got of the "Chimneys" on our drive to it:


Today there were a couple of parking places left, so we pulled in and prepared for our hike. We were going to go almost a mile on the Chimney Tops Trail - that's the trail that takes you to the summit of the mountain in the picture above. Right about the time the trail started getting really steep, though, we would branch off onto another, lesser-used trail to see some waterfalls. I was excited!

Continued in next post ...

[christiejay]

... continued from previous post ...

The trail began by going down from the road quite steeply, but only for a short time. Almost immediately we were at the first of four bridges we would be crossing.


The view upstream from the bridge


And the view downstream, showing a beautiful deep pool




At the end of the bridge the hiking book pointed out this huge magnolia tree

It looks like several trees, but all those trunks are actually "lobes" from one base.

And just around the corner was the second bridge




Looking downstream (that is one HUGE tree in the water! I know it is hard to get a sense of scale just from the picture.)


and upstream


After the second bridge the trail turned to the left, going steadily uphill, and followed alongside the river, giving us many chances to see some great views.


This one is looking back down the hill - you can see the last bridge we just crossed at the bottom.






This must be taken from the third bridge, because you can see where the trail continues in the upper left of the picture (meaning we would have to have crossed to the other side of the river from where we had been). The view upstream


And the view downstream










And finally the fourth bridge.








The view downstream


And upstream




We had to walk a little further on this trail until we reached our turn. A couple of views from this last portion of Chimney Tops Trail:




Up next: Hiking in solitude - My favorite part of the whole trip!

[Colexis Mom]

Great pictures! Looks like a beautiful park!

[GoofEme]

You know, looking at the pictures, I can smell it. It smells as wonderful as the pictures look. I could see the rock wall perfectly through the brush and trees you were describing awhile ago because I knew exactly what to look for. You are doing a wonderful job describing the mountains here. Kudos to you!

[Katara81]

Beautiful pics of the river! Love it

[chezp]

What a beautiful place.

[lauren-roxy]

Beautiful photos Christie!!

[guitardiva]

Love the pics! . It is beautiful there.

[christiejay]

Originally Posted by GoofEme

You know, looking at the pictures, I can smell it. It smells as wonderful as the pictures look. I could see the rock wall perfectly through the brush and trees you were describing awhile ago because I knew exactly what to look for. You are doing a wonderful job describing the mountains here. Kudos to you!

Thanks I just hope you all don't get tired of looking at trees, cause, well ... there's just a few more pictures to go through!

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

Great pictures! Looks like a beautiful park!

Originally Posted by Katara81

Beautiful pics of the river! Love it

Originally Posted by chezp

What a beautiful place.

Originally Posted by lauren-roxy

Beautiful photos Christie!!

Originally Posted by guitardiva

Love the pics! . It is beautiful there.

Thanks to all of you. It really is a beautiful park. I've been reading a little about the history of the park's creation, especially because this year marks its 75th anniversary. It is amazing to think that a lot of areas in the park were subjected to heavy logging for many years. It is so green everywhere now that it is hard to imagine.

Another thing I like about it is the diversity - there are fields, streams, mountains. You can fish and wade in the water, and plenty of waterfalls, some within easy walking distance. There are old churches and homesites to see, or you can just drive through and look at the scenery and watch for wildlife. And if you choose to walk, there are short nature trails as well as all kinds of hikes of any level of difficulty and distance. And I think it is the only national park left that does not charge an admission fee.

But what I like best (at least it is my favorite thing today ) is that because of the huge change in elevation as you go through the park you encounter completely different ecosystems. I read somewhere that driving on Newfound Gap Road (the main road through the park, which is only about 33 miles long) is like driving from the Southeast US up to Canada, in the different types of trees you see.

Okay, advertisement over! Next update coming right up.

[christiejay]

Continuing with Day 3 - June 29

From reading my hiking book, I knew we needed to walk about 9/10 of a mile along the Chimney Tops Trail until we turned, and that the turn would be shortly after the fourth bridge. So after that bridge I started looking for a trail sign. Well, we kept walking for what seemed like a long time to me. And then we approached a curve in the trail - it was obvious the main trail took the curve around the mountain to the right. But there was definitely a smaller trail that continued straight ahead. The problem was that there was no trail sign to mark the intersection. What if this wasn't it - what if it was simply a trail that somebody had made while going to check out another view of the river? I really didn't want to take another wrong turn again like we had on the other trail this morning. So I conferred with Jay. And after reading the description of the trail intersection in the book, and double-checking the waypoints he had previously marked on his GPS, we decided that this was definitely the right way to go. Either they never had a trail sign here, or something happened to it.

So we set off for the unknown. At first the area was very grassy, but it soon turned into a rocky trail. I immediately fell in love with it - it was very green, with moss and ferns everywhere, the river on one side, and rocks underfoot. Normally I don't like rocky trails, but something made this one different. I took lots of pictures because I just couldn't help myself! The points we were looking for on this trail included boulders and waterfalls, and they seemed to be coming at us one after the other. After an initial climb we rejoined the river, then it was a steady incline all the way up.






Joshua was carrying a Wal-Mart bag on this and all our hikes. It was part of the Junior Ranger program - they had to attend a class, do at least 8 of the 11 activities in their book, and pick up a bag of garbage. So we worked on the litter throughout the week, anytime we went on a trail we took the bag with us.





It's hard to tell but this was a little stream we had to cross.


More rhododendron - and you can just barely see the sparkle of the river through the branches and leaves

















At this point we were kind-of at the base of the large waterfall. There didn't seem to be a real good spot to take a picture, except from in the river. Jay went down, but I felt it was too steep for Joshua. So Jay told me and Joshua to go on up to the bridge just above and he would take our picture.






This was one of the boulders we were looking for - with the tree growing up right behind it. My book described it as being the size of a small car.

Here's the view at the top portion of the waterfall, it was a series of falls instead of one large one like what I had been expecting.


Continued in next post ...

[christiejay]

... continued from previous post ...

And here is Jay on the rocks below - This is zoomed in, he was pretty far below us.




Joshua and I waited at the top until Jay caught up with us.


Just around the corner was the standing rock we were looking for.




This is the same rock, looking back down from above. I waited for Jay and Joshua to catch up so you could tell how large it was.


Somehow I got way ahead of the boys and waited for them to come into view again.


Another huge tree that had fallen into the river. Every few minutes we would come upon another small waterfall like this.


And the trail kept rising ...












This waterfall is the last sight mentioned in my hiking book that we had planned to walk to. Keep in mind, it's hard to put this into scale, but these are huge boulders the water is coming over, not just a few rocks. (The book says it is a 15-foot waterfall here.)






After this, because we were enjoying the trail so much, we decided to keep walking a little further to see what else we might come across. However, shortly after this spot the trail seemed to start heading away from the water. We decided we ought to head back down, as we had been walking for over two hours by this time. I only took a couple of pictures on the way down, and they were both in this general area:


Joshua loved the moss, and this was a good spot to show how abundant it was.

And then we saw this snail so I had to get a picture of him!


We slowly made our way back down the trail, being careful not to trip on any of the rocks. It was fun to remember all the landmarks we had passed on the way up, and try to remember which one would come next on the way back down. When this trail intersected with the Chimney Tops Trail again, I requested a break. We sat down on a large rock by the side of the trail to rest for a minute. My problem was my knees getting sore - they didn't bother me on the way up, but I definitely had to take it slower than anticipated coming down.

Soon we were back up on our feet, and counted the four bridges in reverse. There were a lot of people on the trail today, although we hadn't seen anybody on the other trail (Road Prong Trail). I forgot how far it was in between the upper set of bridges and the lower set, and was disappointed every time we turned the corner and I couldn't see the next bridge! But eventually we made it and got back to the truck. It had taken us almost four hours to walk about 3 1/3 miles round trip. All the way I kept telling Jay how much I loved the trail, I think he was tired of hearing me say it, but I'm also pretty sure he enjoyed it as well.

Up Next: Clingman's Dome - Is there such a thing as a good view anymore?

[christiejay]

*** BONUS UPDATE ***



I completely forgot to put Jay's pictures into the last couple of day's posts! He didn't take very many pictures on this trip, and since I now have a digital camera of my own I tend to forget to incorporate his pictures into the report at times.

Here we are back at the beginning of the Chimney Tops Trail - the part I posted yesterday.


As you will see, Jay loves to experiment with his shutter speed on water shots.


Joshua on one of the bridges ... looks like the second bridge, before we started the main uphill portion of the trail.








This is the portion of the trail between the third and fourth bridges.








Now we move on to pictures on the Road Prong Trail, the part I just posted above. This is the large waterfall, the book says it is 60 feet tall. This is the time that I told you Jay went down into the river to take a picture of it, and we walked on ahead. You can see the handrail on the bridge at the top, where we had to cross over.


And here we are at the top. Actually, it was the picture I took of Jay from this spot that made me realize I had left out his pictures - I could see him holding his camera, and suddenly thought "Where's the picture he took of us?!?" So here it is:






Okay, so now we're all caught up! Hopefully I won't do that again. Up next will be our visit to Clingman's Dome, highest peak in the national park, and the 3rd highest peak east of the MS River.

[pamcarey]

Great updates!! Sounds like something I would really love! We are planning to go hiking to waterfalls of the White Mountains in New Hampshire next weekend.