Cade's Cove

My parents came to visit last weekend, and wanted to go to the Smokies. I took them to the park last year when they came, but we kind of just drove around and pulled off at a few of the scenic view turnoffs, without really having a plan or going to see something specific. This year, we had a whole day to kill, so at the advice of some friends I took them to Cade's Cove last Sunday. I've never been to that part of the park, either, so it was fun for us all.

For those unfamiliar with the park, Cade's Cove is a large valley deep in the park. A number of historic buildings have been preserved there, although several were relocated from other areas. To visit, you drive on a one-way scenic loop, which means that a lot of your visit looks like this:



Since a lot of the view also looks like this, though:











it's a nice tradeoff.

We skipped a few buildings, because there were just too many cars and people, but we did pull off at the Primitive Baptist Church for a few minutes:









and then stopped at the Methodist Church:



but after that we decided we'd seen enough churches and enough unruly children running around the churches. This couple in the Methodist Church was letting their kids bang on the piano and they actually threw a Bible from the pulpit and laughed. I was disgusted, especially when the mom was trying to explain to the kids about preservation while not stopping them from taking part in destruction.

We saw a few deer, and there was a long traffic jam when people said they could see bears, but we didn't see them. It's possible that all of the people getting out of their cars and stomping across the field to get closer (Seriously, people? It's not a zoo. Have fun getting mauled.) scared the bears away by the time our car got to the right spot, but it's equally likely that they just wandered off on their own.

We stopped for the longest time at the Cable Mill Historic Area, where a number of buildings are preserved together around the Cable sawmill and gristmill. They have a visitors center:



and a lot of buildings:















and Cade's Cove is just, overall, a really pretty place to spend a sunny day.

Laurel Falls

I've wanted to hike to Laurel Falls in the Smokies for a while, but every time I decide that I want to go, the parking at the trailhead is always full when I get there and I end up going somewhere else in the park instead. I figured out a while ago that I could just get up really early and go then, but I hate getting up really early, and my hatred of early rising has always outweighed my desire to hike to Laurel Falls.

Fortunately I've been getting up at 5:30 in the morning for two weeks to get to work really early (or maybe not fortunately; I've fallen asleep during a lot of TV for the past couple of weeks) so I figured that now was the time to take advantage of my new early-riser schedule, and informed Kristin that I would be leaving my apartment to head to Laurel Falls between 6:00 and 6:30 Saturday morning.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

"You're gonna need to call me. A lot."

"OK."

Yesterday morning I got up, and left the apartment at 6:08. Yay for being on schedule!

I got some gas:



picked up Kristin and the picnic basket she packed us for brunch, and we headed into the mountains...

...where my plan was completely successful!



There were so many parking spaces at the trailhead when we got there that I parked us right in front of the sign.

Not that it was the only sign there:



Danger? Vertical drops? I don't really like dangerous vertical drops. Kristin, on the other hand, took the sign as a challenge, not a warning:



Edge of the path, then entire way. I should have been more worried, but I had the car keys, so, you know, if you want to play on the edge of the cliffs (and it's a lot of cliffs; the path is paved and not steep, but clings to the side of the mountain the whole way) even though a sign told you not to, go right ahead. I'll be sure to explain the whole thing to the park ranger while they're trying to jam your legbone back inside so they can airlift you.

The trail isn't especially scenic. There are some nice views, and I was intrigued by this tree that managed to grow and fill every space between two boulders:



but for the most part it's just 1.2 miles of walking and trying to figure out what's wrong with the tenth of a mile markers along the way.

I have photographic proof that there definitely is something wrong with them.

At first, I was trying to use them to be motivational.

"Look! We've already gone two tenths of a mile!"

But then Kristin pointed out that three tenths was taking forever.

"Seriously, we've walked like twice as far as we walked for the first two marker things."

"No, they measure. It just seems farther because the trail doubled back and went uphill. Or something. Whatever. They measure it."

"I think you're wrong."

"I think you should stop playing on the edge like that."

"Whatever."

I loudly called out each tenth as we passed the marker, Kristin continued to insist that they were inaccurately placed, and I continued to insist that she was wrong, until we got to marker #8:



See those two guys back there? That thing sticking out of the ground next to them is marker #7. It's less than fifty yards away. Even if I'm off on the yardage, that's definitely not a tenth of a mile. I also didn't see a marker #12 anywhere near the falls, but maybe the park designers figured you didn't need a marker when it was obvious that you were at the end:





There's a bridge over the falls:



where there's kind of a natural break between the top level and bottom level of the falls. The path keeps going on the opposite side of the bridge, although it gets really steep and rocky:



If you do go ahead and climb it a little ways, though, it gives a better view of the falls as a whole:



We stayed for several minutes taking it in, peeking over the edges, and taking a lot of photos:



and I learned a couple of things:

1) The water is COLD. Like, "This water was snow ten minutes ago" cold. Just standing on the bridge you could feel a noticeable difference in the temperature, and it was cold enough to see your breath.

2) It's kind of dark by the falls early in the morning. I brought the pinhole camera, but none of the pictures I took at the falls came out. There are a few where you can see the white water, but everything else is so dark that you can't tell what's going on around it.

3) The falls are loud. We heard them long before we got to them. You can hear a little bit of it in this video:



but it seemed a lot louder in person.

It was a good hike, though, and when we got back to the car all of the other parking spaces were taken.

Those people should have left home earlier.

Aggressive Bear Activity

Last weekend, Kristin had this idea.

"Let's go to the Smokies! We can do some hiking, and I'll pack us a lunch! We'll have a picnic!"

I've been hiking in the Smokies a few times, and last weekend the weather was really nice, so it sounded like a good idea.

"Where do you want to hike?"

"Oh, I was there with my friend the other day when she came to visit, and we talked to these old people who told us about this really pretty trail with a waterfall and stuff. It'll be really easy."

"OK."

I should have asked more questions, but I was still coasting from the high of the breast cancer walk and I trust my friend, so I was kind of complacent, and didn't ask which trail we would be hiking until I was already in the car and we were already in the park. Kristin smiled innocently and answered, "Uh... it's called the, uh, Chimney Tops?"

"WHAT?"

Kristin mumbled, "Chimney Tops" while hunching defensively over the steering wheel.

"WHAT?"

For those unfamiliar with the park, please look at this photo:



See the mountain in the back there, with the double peak? Those two peaks are called the Chimney Tops. The trail starts at the bottom of the mountain. It's an all day hike, it's fairly difficult, and it was already lunch time when we got to the park. I know a few experienced hikers who have done the Chimney Tops, and they all said it was difficult and tiring and you really needed to be prepared for it. Kristin and I were completely unprepared, in that I was wearing sneakers, neither of us had gloves or raingear, and we're both on the hefty side. I have low endurance and the muscle mass of a weak toddler, and these are hindrances to hauling myself up a mountain with no notice.

I explained all of this to Kristin, and she admitted that she had deliberately lied about our destination.

"I was afraid that if you knew where we were going you wouldn't get in the car."

"YOU WERE RIGHT! ARE YOU INSANE?"

After a few minutes of quiet, rational discussion at a reasonable volume we decided that we would stop at the information center for a map, walk as far down the Chimney Tops trail as the waterfall so that Kristin could see it, eat lunch, and then use the map to find another, less challenging hike that we could do for the rest of the afternoon. Our plan hit a snag when we couldn't find a parking space at the Chimney Tops trailhead, and then after lunch we couldn't find a space at the Laurel Falls trailhead for our backup hike. Fortunately, we found a parking space at the Little River trailhead for the "moderate" hike that the map promised us.

According to the map, we were going to go on a five and a half mile loop. We'd go a little over two miles on one trail, switch to another trail when they intersected, and then switch to a third trail when they intersected, and we'd end up back where we started. The map claimed that it was a moderate hike with many river views, and also that we would finish up by walking through the remains of the village of Elkmont, a wealthy vacation community that was absorbed into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when it was created. No one lives in the cottages anymore, and the hotel collapsed several years ago, but the park is trying to save a few of the buildings after years of neglect because they are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. I've never been through that part of the park, so I was excited.

The first part of the hike went as promised. The trail was moderately flat:



and there were a number of river views:











Most of the leaves are gone from the trees:



but it's still kind of pretty:



We got through the first trail fine. There were a lot of people around, but they suddenly all vanished when we reached the second trail. One pair even watched us start on the second trail, snickered, and turned away to go back the way they came. We should have followed them, but we wouldn't realize that until later. Instead, we blithely skipped along through the forest, stopping to look at butterflies:



and waterfalls:



and tree fungus:



and giant orange spiders:





The whole time, our path was gradually sloping upward, and then all of a sudden we spent two miles walking uphill at about a thirty degree angle. Worse, the trail got progressively narrower, and full of tree roots, so that we were less hiking and more stumbling, and then we had to cross two creeks without bridges, and we had no walking sticks to help balance us.

We could have helped balance each other, but the first person across kept stopping and holding up their camera in case the second person across fell into the river.

I can't quite clearly remember which of us was the first person and which was the second.

Just as we were crossing the second creek, a little old man passed us from the other direction, said hi, and kept going. We both realized that we'd been hiking for a while and that he was the first person we had seen since we got on the second trail, and we started to wonder where the hell everybody else was. We also noticed that the sun was starting to get a little low in the sky, and Kristin kept claiming that she saw little piles of bear poop on the trail. I insisted that we would be fine, but when she showed me one of the little piles it did kind of look like bear poop. We tried to speed up, but that's kind of hard when you're climbing uphill while stumbling over tree roots and trying not to twist your ankle on them or to fall off the side of the narrow path and into a gorge.

Finally, we reached the trail crossing where we were supposed to pick up the third trail, and noticed that there was a gate across the trail. We climbed over it, and spotted this sign:



Aggressive bear activity. You know where that sign, and maybe a second gate, would have been a little bit more helpful?

AT BOTH ENDS OF THE TRAIL.

At this point we were both like, "WTF, National Park Service? And what the hell was up with that old guy passing us and not going, 'Oh, hey, watch out for aggressive bears'? WHO DOES THAT?" so we decided to just stomp down the last trail and head back to the car. This was actually kind of easy, since the last trail was for the most part the partially paved remains of the main road through Elkmont:



but now, having escaped from the danger of aggressive bears, we had a new problem: We were alone, in the woods, at sunset, in an abandoned village, on Halloween, and everyone we'd told that we were going anywhere thought that we were at the Chimney Tops in an entirely different area of the park. We might as well have just handed our spleens to Satanist hillbilly cultists and climbed up onto the altar ourselves to save time, because this was like being in twenty different horror movies at the same time.

It didn't help that the village is kind of spooky when there are no other hikers around:













Eventually we made it back to the car, alive and with all of our internal organs intact. Then we drove to the first McDonald's we saw, inhaled cheeseburgers like we hadn't eaten in weeks, and decided that we should do this again sometime soon.

Maybe in spring, when the bears are still asleep.