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.

Two Weekends Ago Part 2: "Sometimes people go there to commit suicide."

Making banana bread wasn't my only adventure two (Or is it now three? I've lost count.) weekends ago. After leaving a cryptic comment on my entry about exploring the Ross Marble Quarry and seeing the giant Alex Haley, Elizabeth finally convinced Kristin and I to go with her, Ben, and William on a mysterious hike to a secret destination.

I say "mysterious" because this is what she told us to prepare us:

1) Bring strong flashlights. You'll need them, even during the day.

2) It's nearby, but most people don't know about it.

3) "Sometimes people go there to commit suicide."

Wait, what was that last one?

"You know, sometimes people go there and kill themselves. But it's totally safe!"

OK, see, I've seen The Descent, and I don't want to die in that movie. (What movie do I want to die in? I dunno, but I prefer that it's one where Tom Welling and I spend the first half making out pretty much the whole time. And clean shaven Tom, not that mess he turns into between seasons.)

"You're not going to die! It'll be fun!"

Yeah, the chicks in "The Descent" thought they were going to have fun, too, and you saw how well that worked out. Still, I picked up Kristin, we drove the Elizabeth and Ben's, and then the five of us piled into their truck and drove to Keller Ridge in nearby West Knoxville. Sure enough, neither Kristin nor I had heard of it, and when we pulled to get onto the hiking trail I realized that we were in a totally different movie:



Abandoned, gated road leading off into the middle of the forest? Great. Now we're going to die in Silent Hill instead. You might think I'm exaggerating, but look:



Plant William alone and vulnerable in the middle of the shot, change it to black and white, and tweak the contrast so all the shadows are darker, and suddenly the forest is totally menacing.

Regardless, we followed Elizabeth into the woods anyway, because that's what you do in those movies.



I figured a couple of fun "along the trail" photos would add a certain poignancy to our demise when the searchers found my camera buried under the corner of the Blair Witch's cabin. After several minutes of uphill climbing we burst through the trees into a gorgeous view of Fort Loudon Lake:





It was a gorgeous day to be out there, but what's hard to see in the pictures is that once we reached the lake, the path pretty much clings to the ridge. If you slip, it's a long, long drop, a point Elizabeth emphasized when we reached the part where people climb onto the rock ledge and then jump off and kill themselves:



It will surprise no one, I'm sure, to hear that I did not climb down there. I'm bad with heights and a little clumsy, and there's really nothing down on the suicide ledge that I need.

Likewise, there was nothing in the cave, a little further down the trail, that I needed, either. Clearly, it was safe, since Elizabeth, Kristin, and William went inside and didn't die:





but when I got to the entrance and crouched down to peer inside my little danger voice said, "Don't. Don't go in, ok?" so I didn't. I think Elizabeth was disappointed, but I really did enjoy the trip and the hike. I'm not totally afraid of new things. I try new food and walk down creepy alleys and drive to places I can barely find on a whim, but when my little danger voice says things like, "Get out of this deserted cemetary right now" or "Don't go any further into that abandoned asylum, ok?" I listen without question, because it's never steered me astray.

And I still had a good time even without going into the Cujo bat cave.

Marble and Bronze

Today turned out to be pretty educational for me, even though my original goal was just to get out of the house for a while after I spent almost all of my vacation helping fight the Sun Eater with my colleagues.

The first stop on my list was Ijam's Nature Center, which I've been to twice before, because I wanted to see the new Ross Marble Nature Area that they've added behind Mead's Quarry. I know that Knoxville used to have a booming marble industry, but I didn't know that it used to be called the Marble City. That explains why I drive past the Marble City Baptist Church on my way home every day (I thought Marble City was one of the smaller communities that has been absorbed into Knoxville over the years) and why we have so many former marbleworks around town. According to Wikipedia, Tennessee marble declined in popularity after World War II, and there are only six active quarries left that supply demand for it.

Anyway, since I read an article about it in the paper I've been meaning to go out and see the new trail since the new quarry isn't flooded like Mead's is. (I was tol that there's a spring in the bottom of Mead's, which the quarrying released. Mead's will be flooded forever unless the spring dries up.) It's also supposed to have some interesting formations built by the quarry workers, so I headed down the trail:



This was a bit of a bad idea, because we had thunderstorms yesterday, and the trail was really muddy. I didn't fall, but I did slip and twist my knee, which really hurt. Before anyone gets worried, I had my phone. Despite the mud, though, I had a great view of the two main features, and got to climb the scary steps:



made of marble slabs and chips that make up most the trail.

The main feature is the rock bridge:



The quarry workers built it to make it easier to get from one side of the quarry to the other, and the Ijam's volunteers added the railings. I hope they had some kind of railings when they used it, because the drop on either side is kind of far:



That view gives a good look at the terraces left by quarrying, which is one of the things that makes the site so fascinating. Along the bottom of each terrace, there are rows of holes, as if it has been perforated:



and each edge is grooved as well, like a corrugated tin roof. I'm sure this has something to do with the process by which marble is quarried, but beyond that I have no idea. Maybe they're drill holes? Or they stick dynamite in them? It's weird, because you just walk around the site and look at all these relics of the industry:



and try to imagine why what's left looks like that and what might have been there.

The other feature, the keyhole, is part of the rock bridge:



Since the bridge blocked access in one direction while facillitating access in another, the quarry workers built the keyhole in the base of the bridge so that they could cross into the quarry:



Once I did, though, I decided not to follow the steps down to the bottom, because it looked even muddier than the trail:



It was still an interesting hike, and when I left the nature center I was already close to my second goal for the day:



Our twelve foot statue of Alex Haley.

When I first moved to Knoxville, and I heard that our town housed things like the World's Largest Rubik's Cube:



I used to wonder why things like that were here. Now, though, I read that we have a giant statue of Alex Haley and I think, "Oh, OK. I should go take a picture." After all, the world's largest statue of Alex Haley has to end up somewhere, so why not here? I'm sure people with giant balls of twine or The World's Largest Ten Commandments have the same sense of placid acceptance. It turns out, though, that Alex Haley is listed as a famous Knoxvillian, so it sort of make sense that we would have something here to commemorate it, if only to compete with the Dolly Parton statue down the road.

It's actually a pretty nice statue. It's right next to a playground, and it really does look like Alex Haley:





Tina Allen:



did a really good job, although you do kind of wonder why, if she'd already signed the leg, she needed a huge plaque right on the front of the statue, too:



I realize credit should be given where due, but shouldn't the focus of the Alex Haley statue be Alex Haley?

I may never know the answer to that question (or I may, someday, if Tina Allen is a self-Googler) but let's look at what I did learn today:

1) Tennesse marble isn't actually true marble, but is instead crystallized limestone.
2) That Marble City was not a suburb, but was the city of Knoxville itself.
3) Alex Haley is from Knoxville.
4) Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan on "Mad Men", was born in Knoxville.

I look forward to photographing her large bronze statue.

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.