Backpacking in the Smoky Mountains
So, I went backpacking in the Smoky Mountains last week! It was only my second time backpacking, but I definitely think I'm getting the hang of it, and I really like it.
It's a 9 hour drive from where we are in Maryland down to the park in Tennessee, but we drove through the night switching out drivers and got there fairly early in the afternoon on Friday. Apparently we had entirely overestimated the popularity of backpacking, which in retrospect is a silly thing to do. Sure, the park and adjoining Carnival tourist trap of Gatlinburg were packed, but why would there be hordes of people lining up to spend several days hiking deep into the wilderness carrying enormous packs? Yeah, silly us. In the end, it just means we got to do the loop that has been hailed by guide books and park volunteers alike as "the nicest loop in the park". Fantastic.
Friday: Big Creek Ranger Station -> Davenport Gap Shelter via AT (2 miles)
We were five people altogether, a pretty big group to get together for backpacking, which was great. We dropped off our packs and part of our group at the trail head by the Appalachian Trail towards the Davenport Gap shelter, parked our car down by the Big Creek ranger station, where we also filled up on water from a hose and bought some large trash bags off of a woman running a bizarre horse-supply shop (to protect our bags from rain), and ran up the winding gravel road about 1.6 miles to get back to the trailhead and begin our trek.
This was the first time any of us put on our packs, and none of us were experienced backpackers really, but we managed to fit everything nicely into our backpacks (we had nice one's of those, at least, I borrowed one from a friend but am looking forward to getting my own), and set off. It wasn't far or difficult to the Shelter, and we got there fairly early, since it was just two miles. The shelters themselves are really nice and convenient, I'd never seen any before so I was looking forward to finally using one. They're basically little cabins almost, except the floor is dirt, and one wall is just a big chain link fence, that locks to protect from BEAAARS I'm assuming.
Saturday: Davenport Gap Shelter -> Mt. Cammerer via AT (6.8miles rt) -> Campsite 35 via Lower Mt. Cammerer Trail (3.1 miles)
The next morning we had our first experience at using a filter to get potable water, since even fresh spring water is riddled with diseases and death, and after having boiled water the night before in order to make drinking water, the filter beat it hands down. Much quicker, less set-up, and you can drink nice cool water right away. We used the filter throughout the rest of the trip as well, and since there were plenty of places to gather water, many of which were even marked on the map, it was incredibly convenient and nice to know we never felt at risk of running out of water.
At the junction between the AT towards Mt. Cammerer and the Lower Mt. Cammerer trail towards our campsite for that night, we decided to drop off our packs in the bushes so that we could head towards the Mt. Cammerer lookout tower without them, since we'd have to be backtracking anyways. Found a big tree a bit of a ways off the trail to stash them behind, and because I was in LNT-park-regulation-fiend mode, we gathered all of our food into a bag and used a rope I had brought along (recommended by hiking guide books, and I guess it was useful, and good to have just in case) to sling it up over a tree. Might not have been the best way to do it, but we tried, and luckily none of the black bears we kept hearing about managed to get at it.
It was a good thing we'd gotten rid of our packs, because the trail up to Mt. Cammerer was fairly brutal. Those 2.3 miles to the tower took us over 2 hrs, much longer than the previous ones. At this point, as would be proven again and again later on in our journey, one thing became incredibly apparent - we almost never had any clue how many miles we'd actually walked so far. The grades of hills have an amazing ability to throw off your judgement, and what can seem like an eternity when it's all uphill will take you about a third the time on the way down and seem like only a mile! The view from the Mt. Cammerer fire tower was pretty nice, and since I'm a bit of a mileage fanatic, I'm definitely glad we went. We hadn't expected it to take so long though, so once we gathered our bags again, we picked up the pace a bit towards our campsite, hoping to beat sundown.
The steepness went down considerably here, so we had a fairly enjoyable, if not incredibly easy, hike towards the site, and actually made it there around 8 o'clock, where we managed to pull ourselves together and set up camp really quickly. Everyone who came worked pretty well together, so we managed to naturally distribute our work, and within the hour had set up the tents, filtered water and cooked some clam-chowder rice for dinner, gather firewood and start a camp fire, and hang up all our food on the built-in bear lines that were set up at each campsite. The campsites themselves are all very nice, and I don't know if it's because we were miraculously well-prepared and managed not to forget anything, or maybe because we had a good variety of food to cook and eat and flavor, but somehow it never felt like we were too deep in the wilderness. I never got the feeling we were roughing it, but I guess that just comes with good (=lucky: we packed and planned the night before and on the drive over) preparation.
Sunday: Campsite 35 -> Campsite 37 via Lower Mt. Cammerer Trail & Low Gap Trail (9.3 miles)
You know, you usually assume you would wake up really early on camp trips, right? It ends up being cold in the mornings, you went to bed so early because you were tired and it was dark, etc., etc. . Well, we didn't seem to run into that at all, so after our later start the morning before, it actually felt early when we made it out of camp just after 10am. It was surprisingly warm in the mornings, none of that usual freezing-cold morning chilliness. I also had a pretty great sleeping bag and tent, I bought them at the start of this summer for a previous bike trip and am really glad to be getting some more use out of them. Although, the bag is a bit short, and after reading the tag I realized they recommend you get the tall size if you are 5'6" or above. I don't fully see how that qualifies me as tall, but, oh well. I'll have to look into that, I got them at REI and I know they have a pretty amazing return policy.
A fairly simple 4 mile hike which passed by the Cosby Creek car camping site, we ran into some more people along here that were just on day hikes, including a family that had stopped dead in their tracks because they spotted a bear a bit off into the woods. I didn't see it much, but it was there alright. We reassured them they were safe though, as the five of us rolled in and one guy informed the mom we were well-armed against bears, surprising her by patting down several knifes and ridiculous machetes attached to his belt. We found a bigger body of water here for the first time, but it was cooooold, and I was still in park-regulation mode, so I thought I'd follow their advice and not try to swim in any waters, unlike 2 of the craziest guys in our group who hopped into that frigid little pool of water.
From here came the biggest killer hike we had for the entire trip, and definitely the one responsible for crushing our groups spirit and causing later abandonment. The Low Gap trail from Cosby Creek camp site up to the Appalachian Trail is intense! It was all extremely steep uphill, plus with our packs (we never weighed them, so I can't say at all how much we were carrying, my estimation skills are entirely nonexistant), it was pretty gruelling. Along the way, when we felt we'd gone a mile already, we ran into a man on his way down who told us we were half-way there...LIAR! LIAR LIAR LIAR! Of course, we believed him at the time, and boy did it feel like we'd gone at least a mile already, but somehow these 2.5 miles seemed endless, as they do on uphills, and our group started to splinter. While I had spent most of the time at the back of our group, due to my wandering mind getting sucked into the pretty bright green trees (I love that color in nature), and my pace being set primarily by the slight inadequacy of my bootleg hiking boots, this was pretty much the only time I took to the front, since I'm more of an endurance person and just kept going at a consistent pace up that hill without taking breaks. I like to get into a good mindset, and stopping at any point kind of tears me out of it. It was around 5pm by the time the entire group had made it to to the junction at the AT, trickling in throughout the hour, but from the previous day when we had run back down the Mt. Cammerer trail, we knew the next 2.5 miles down wouldn't take us too long, and a little over an hour later we made it to campsite 37.
Gorgeous campsite! It was in a clearing in the woods, with a stream and a bridge nearby, just generally very pretty. We were all dead tired, and the wood was all wet so we couldn't start a fire, which isn't too bad, since park services discourages it anyways, so I wasn't too disappointed. Went to bed soon after, after having hung up our food in safety, or so we thought...
Monday: Campsite 35 -> Big Creek Ranger Station via Big Creek Trail (5 miles)
We heard rain around us all night, the first time so far since the Shelter, which had kept us perfectly dry. Woke up fairly early as the rain settled down, and upon opening our food bag were a bit baffled as to how the trash had spilled so far. And then we saw the open ramen packets, and the oatmeal as well. This was not a bear attack - it was chipmunks gone rampant! Luckily we had plenty of food with us, so it wasn't too big of a mess to clean up. When it started raining again, we retreated once more to our tents, hoping we'd be able to wait it out, and as I took another morning nap, noticing that if you've spent all day hiking, no amount of sleep can be enough, I awoke to discover a change of our original plans to Mt. Sterling.
It seems the previous day had crushed our spirits, and no one was up for what was looking to be another steep climb up to Mt. Sterling. Instead, we were going to take an even 5 miles back to the original parking lot, passing two waterfalls along the way. We hopped into the first swimable spot we passed just an hour in, and by now even I had to admit that it was not a dangerous place. Yay for getting rid of grimy sweat!
When we got to the first waterfall, the first order of business was to climb it, another one of those wonderful things they don't want you doing. But it's so fun! The second waterfall was even better, and made our las swimming hole look like a puddle, as this was a bonafide jumping location as well, with rocks nearley 6 feet high going into water over 12 feet deep, and lots of space to swim around. By now it was clear we were no longer deep in the woods, as we passed day hikers constantly and shared this waterfall with several other groups of swimmers. We made it out just before 5pm, and our time camping deep in the woods was over! 5 nights turned into 3, but still, an epic adventure nonetheless, and just because we weren't backpacking anymore didn't mean it was over yet.
Out of the Mountains: Ahab's Whale in Ashville
As is usual post-backpacking, our first order of business was an insanely large, greasy meal at a restaurant. Buuuut we're not exactly the most coordinated bunch, and once the car gets involved, the ability to waste time increases exponentially, so we decided to drive an hour away to Ashville, NC, to see the Biltmore Estates, billed as the largest personal home in the United States, with over 250 rooms in 3 stories. We pull up to the driveway around 6pm, having agreed that $5 is the most we'd be willing to pay per person to get a look at the place, but it seems they close at 4pm, so we pull into the parking lot and consider for a while if there's any other way to get in. It looks like a pretty high security area, so trespassing does not sound like such a good idea, especially right beneath the no-trespassing sign listing all of the various offenses for which we can be punished. Coupled with the fact that we don't know how far in the actual house is, we are at a standstill. I decide to get out of the car and go ask the security guard if there's any way we can perform a quick drive-by, just to take a peek. The (female) security guard unfortunately informs me that they're closed, and the place is actually 3 miles in, so walking over to look at it is out of the question. On a whim, thinking we might decide to pass by on the way back the next day, I ask about ticket prices. The cost? $45 per person! Wow! This sure must be one heck of an epic place for them to charge that much, and I can't believe it but it seems it's true. Crazy.
Now that the price of this place has gone up so much, and we drove an hour to get here, the value of seeing is higher than ever, and we try to catch at least a glimpse of the building by following Google maps satellite images to a side road form which we might be able to see it. Yep, Google maps is great for scoping out places! We never do end up finding it though, and after a bit of a neighborhood tour around the area, we finally give up and head towards T.G.I.F. for that epic feast.
During this entire trip, as we became less and less civilized with our transformation into bonafide smelly mountain men, our appearance and mannerisms reflected this even more, and we were soon a noticeably goofy cast of characters. It started when one other person and I walked into the restaurant to make reservations, playing a fun new game I encourage everyone to try. It's called "Who gets kicked out last for not wearing shoes", and we played a good game that evening, as my colorful hair and my partner's hawaiian shirt managed to keep the wait staff's eyes up top, away from our bare feet. We manage to get seated at the table, waiting for the rest of our team to park the car and enter, when I overhear a voice on the hostesses headset. "There's people in the restaurant with no shoes, we can't have that, we're going to need to ask them to get shoes." As she walks away, our eyes start darting around, looking for what we know will come next: The manager, walking towards us to inform us of our situation. We get up and go quietly, having expected him, and return soon after with boots on our feet. At this point, I would have liked to have one of two things happen: 1) We return with incredibly disgusting, muddy, hole-riddled shoes, demonstrating to all why we chose not to wear them in the first place, or 2) We return with comical shoes along the nature of fuzzy bunny slippers, giant fireman boots, or white gogo boots. Next time!
We spent the time doodling away on our kid's meals, which we wisely decided to accept after initially agreeing with the hostess that we did not need them, and as the rest of our group filled in and we ordered ridiculous amounts of food (myself excluded: Vegans get nothing but a large plate of steamed broccoli at Fridays. Luckily, I <3 broccoli!), one thing became amusingly apparent. We were an island, and the restaurant was choosing not to seat anyone near us. Oooh, wonderful college days, when your parents are no longer around to make you behave, and you still haven't learned why you should on your own! My kids are in trouble, because I don't know how I'll be able to teach them any manners...
We started driving back that evening to the Smokys, since we still had a few places to check out, but one of the tents was flooded and we had little energy to set them up again anyways, so we ended up parking the car at a rest site, where we slept in various positions: One person went out with his sleeping bag to sleep on a park bench, another girl decided hopping into the back of the SUV ontop of all of our (wet, smelly) bags would be comfy, one spread out in the passenger seat, another was already KO by the time we got there and remained seated while I shifted endlessly all over the place, attempting to find a comfy spot, before I admitted defeated and grabbed my sleeping bag to head out as well. I figured, in case of serial killers, the other guy outside would be able to laugh maniacly and wave his machete around enough to scare anyone off, and I'd put up a good fight myself as well. I did, however, take my wrapped sleeping bag with me when I went to the rest room, in case I had to pummel anyone with it.
Back to Tennesse: The Smokies by Car
We went back that morning for our last day in the park with several missions that could not have been accomplished by foot. First, we went to the south of the park, near Bryson City and Cherokee, to run along the Whiteoak Branch trail towards campsite 71. There wasn't much energy left collectively in our group for much hiking, but I get antsy sitting around in a car all day, so I was definitely up for a 10 mile jog, which became a slow crawl on every uphill we hit. I am not a person for running up hills. Not yet, that's for sure. And the one other person that came? Well, he's the reason we came out here in the first place. He'd been here once before this spring, and lost a knife on that trip. In a log, in the woods, slightly off the trail near campsite 71. And he wanted it back. I didn't care to argue, because I just wanted to get some hiking in, but utlimately we never did find that knife, not too surprisingly.
From here we moved on by car to Mingo Falls, tallest waterfall in the park, and we climbed it again, of course, with one of us (the one afraid of heights) deciding he would like to lay down in them at the top, precariously close to the edge. No falling, please! Next up was Clingman's Dome, highest peak in the park, and another hour's drive away. It's amazing how much time you spend in the car once you return to it, and it also seemed to be the most stressful time we had at all during this week, whenever we got lost or had no real destination. When we got there, I was feeling kind of queazy from what I'd say was probably a heatstroke from running earlier that day without drinking enough, and that last 0.5 miles we had to wander up towards the lookout tower seemed like the longest I'd walked during the entire trip, even though I was carrying absolutely nothing. By now, we'd almost all gotten rid of our shoes, and were wandering up the paved pedestrian road in shoes and socks. 'Cept one guy, who decided he was good enough for sandals. :P
The view from the top was pretty great, and running back down the hill was even better than running up it. And that was the last of our view of the Smokys, leading into our uneventful overnight drive back to Maryland. All in all, fantastic trip, and I can't wait to go backpacking/general adventuring again, any time, any where!
It's a 9 hour drive from where we are in Maryland down to the park in Tennessee, but we drove through the night switching out drivers and got there fairly early in the afternoon on Friday. Apparently we had entirely overestimated the popularity of backpacking, which in retrospect is a silly thing to do. Sure, the park and adjoining Carnival tourist trap of Gatlinburg were packed, but why would there be hordes of people lining up to spend several days hiking deep into the wilderness carrying enormous packs? Yeah, silly us. In the end, it just means we got to do the loop that has been hailed by guide books and park volunteers alike as "the nicest loop in the park". Fantastic.
Friday: Big Creek Ranger Station -> Davenport Gap Shelter via AT (2 miles)
We were five people altogether, a pretty big group to get together for backpacking, which was great. We dropped off our packs and part of our group at the trail head by the Appalachian Trail towards the Davenport Gap shelter, parked our car down by the Big Creek ranger station, where we also filled up on water from a hose and bought some large trash bags off of a woman running a bizarre horse-supply shop (to protect our bags from rain), and ran up the winding gravel road about 1.6 miles to get back to the trailhead and begin our trek.
This was the first time any of us put on our packs, and none of us were experienced backpackers really, but we managed to fit everything nicely into our backpacks (we had nice one's of those, at least, I borrowed one from a friend but am looking forward to getting my own), and set off. It wasn't far or difficult to the Shelter, and we got there fairly early, since it was just two miles. The shelters themselves are really nice and convenient, I'd never seen any before so I was looking forward to finally using one. They're basically little cabins almost, except the floor is dirt, and one wall is just a big chain link fence, that locks to protect from BEAAARS I'm assuming.
Saturday: Davenport Gap Shelter -> Mt. Cammerer via AT (6.8miles rt) -> Campsite 35 via Lower Mt. Cammerer Trail (3.1 miles)
The next morning we had our first experience at using a filter to get potable water, since even fresh spring water is riddled with diseases and death, and after having boiled water the night before in order to make drinking water, the filter beat it hands down. Much quicker, less set-up, and you can drink nice cool water right away. We used the filter throughout the rest of the trip as well, and since there were plenty of places to gather water, many of which were even marked on the map, it was incredibly convenient and nice to know we never felt at risk of running out of water.
At the junction between the AT towards Mt. Cammerer and the Lower Mt. Cammerer trail towards our campsite for that night, we decided to drop off our packs in the bushes so that we could head towards the Mt. Cammerer lookout tower without them, since we'd have to be backtracking anyways. Found a big tree a bit of a ways off the trail to stash them behind, and because I was in LNT-park-regulation-fiend mode, we gathered all of our food into a bag and used a rope I had brought along (recommended by hiking guide books, and I guess it was useful, and good to have just in case) to sling it up over a tree. Might not have been the best way to do it, but we tried, and luckily none of the black bears we kept hearing about managed to get at it.
It was a good thing we'd gotten rid of our packs, because the trail up to Mt. Cammerer was fairly brutal. Those 2.3 miles to the tower took us over 2 hrs, much longer than the previous ones. At this point, as would be proven again and again later on in our journey, one thing became incredibly apparent - we almost never had any clue how many miles we'd actually walked so far. The grades of hills have an amazing ability to throw off your judgement, and what can seem like an eternity when it's all uphill will take you about a third the time on the way down and seem like only a mile! The view from the Mt. Cammerer fire tower was pretty nice, and since I'm a bit of a mileage fanatic, I'm definitely glad we went. We hadn't expected it to take so long though, so once we gathered our bags again, we picked up the pace a bit towards our campsite, hoping to beat sundown.
The steepness went down considerably here, so we had a fairly enjoyable, if not incredibly easy, hike towards the site, and actually made it there around 8 o'clock, where we managed to pull ourselves together and set up camp really quickly. Everyone who came worked pretty well together, so we managed to naturally distribute our work, and within the hour had set up the tents, filtered water and cooked some clam-chowder rice for dinner, gather firewood and start a camp fire, and hang up all our food on the built-in bear lines that were set up at each campsite. The campsites themselves are all very nice, and I don't know if it's because we were miraculously well-prepared and managed not to forget anything, or maybe because we had a good variety of food to cook and eat and flavor, but somehow it never felt like we were too deep in the wilderness. I never got the feeling we were roughing it, but I guess that just comes with good (=lucky: we packed and planned the night before and on the drive over) preparation.
Sunday: Campsite 35 -> Campsite 37 via Lower Mt. Cammerer Trail & Low Gap Trail (9.3 miles)
You know, you usually assume you would wake up really early on camp trips, right? It ends up being cold in the mornings, you went to bed so early because you were tired and it was dark, etc., etc. . Well, we didn't seem to run into that at all, so after our later start the morning before, it actually felt early when we made it out of camp just after 10am. It was surprisingly warm in the mornings, none of that usual freezing-cold morning chilliness. I also had a pretty great sleeping bag and tent, I bought them at the start of this summer for a previous bike trip and am really glad to be getting some more use out of them. Although, the bag is a bit short, and after reading the tag I realized they recommend you get the tall size if you are 5'6" or above. I don't fully see how that qualifies me as tall, but, oh well. I'll have to look into that, I got them at REI and I know they have a pretty amazing return policy.
A fairly simple 4 mile hike which passed by the Cosby Creek car camping site, we ran into some more people along here that were just on day hikes, including a family that had stopped dead in their tracks because they spotted a bear a bit off into the woods. I didn't see it much, but it was there alright. We reassured them they were safe though, as the five of us rolled in and one guy informed the mom we were well-armed against bears, surprising her by patting down several knifes and ridiculous machetes attached to his belt. We found a bigger body of water here for the first time, but it was cooooold, and I was still in park-regulation mode, so I thought I'd follow their advice and not try to swim in any waters, unlike 2 of the craziest guys in our group who hopped into that frigid little pool of water.
From here came the biggest killer hike we had for the entire trip, and definitely the one responsible for crushing our groups spirit and causing later abandonment. The Low Gap trail from Cosby Creek camp site up to the Appalachian Trail is intense! It was all extremely steep uphill, plus with our packs (we never weighed them, so I can't say at all how much we were carrying, my estimation skills are entirely nonexistant), it was pretty gruelling. Along the way, when we felt we'd gone a mile already, we ran into a man on his way down who told us we were half-way there...LIAR! LIAR LIAR LIAR! Of course, we believed him at the time, and boy did it feel like we'd gone at least a mile already, but somehow these 2.5 miles seemed endless, as they do on uphills, and our group started to splinter. While I had spent most of the time at the back of our group, due to my wandering mind getting sucked into the pretty bright green trees (I love that color in nature), and my pace being set primarily by the slight inadequacy of my bootleg hiking boots, this was pretty much the only time I took to the front, since I'm more of an endurance person and just kept going at a consistent pace up that hill without taking breaks. I like to get into a good mindset, and stopping at any point kind of tears me out of it. It was around 5pm by the time the entire group had made it to to the junction at the AT, trickling in throughout the hour, but from the previous day when we had run back down the Mt. Cammerer trail, we knew the next 2.5 miles down wouldn't take us too long, and a little over an hour later we made it to campsite 37.
Gorgeous campsite! It was in a clearing in the woods, with a stream and a bridge nearby, just generally very pretty. We were all dead tired, and the wood was all wet so we couldn't start a fire, which isn't too bad, since park services discourages it anyways, so I wasn't too disappointed. Went to bed soon after, after having hung up our food in safety, or so we thought...
Monday: Campsite 35 -> Big Creek Ranger Station via Big Creek Trail (5 miles)
We heard rain around us all night, the first time so far since the Shelter, which had kept us perfectly dry. Woke up fairly early as the rain settled down, and upon opening our food bag were a bit baffled as to how the trash had spilled so far. And then we saw the open ramen packets, and the oatmeal as well. This was not a bear attack - it was chipmunks gone rampant! Luckily we had plenty of food with us, so it wasn't too big of a mess to clean up. When it started raining again, we retreated once more to our tents, hoping we'd be able to wait it out, and as I took another morning nap, noticing that if you've spent all day hiking, no amount of sleep can be enough, I awoke to discover a change of our original plans to Mt. Sterling.
It seems the previous day had crushed our spirits, and no one was up for what was looking to be another steep climb up to Mt. Sterling. Instead, we were going to take an even 5 miles back to the original parking lot, passing two waterfalls along the way. We hopped into the first swimable spot we passed just an hour in, and by now even I had to admit that it was not a dangerous place. Yay for getting rid of grimy sweat!
When we got to the first waterfall, the first order of business was to climb it, another one of those wonderful things they don't want you doing. But it's so fun! The second waterfall was even better, and made our las swimming hole look like a puddle, as this was a bonafide jumping location as well, with rocks nearley 6 feet high going into water over 12 feet deep, and lots of space to swim around. By now it was clear we were no longer deep in the woods, as we passed day hikers constantly and shared this waterfall with several other groups of swimmers. We made it out just before 5pm, and our time camping deep in the woods was over! 5 nights turned into 3, but still, an epic adventure nonetheless, and just because we weren't backpacking anymore didn't mean it was over yet.
Out of the Mountains: Ahab's Whale in Ashville
As is usual post-backpacking, our first order of business was an insanely large, greasy meal at a restaurant. Buuuut we're not exactly the most coordinated bunch, and once the car gets involved, the ability to waste time increases exponentially, so we decided to drive an hour away to Ashville, NC, to see the Biltmore Estates, billed as the largest personal home in the United States, with over 250 rooms in 3 stories. We pull up to the driveway around 6pm, having agreed that $5 is the most we'd be willing to pay per person to get a look at the place, but it seems they close at 4pm, so we pull into the parking lot and consider for a while if there's any other way to get in. It looks like a pretty high security area, so trespassing does not sound like such a good idea, especially right beneath the no-trespassing sign listing all of the various offenses for which we can be punished. Coupled with the fact that we don't know how far in the actual house is, we are at a standstill. I decide to get out of the car and go ask the security guard if there's any way we can perform a quick drive-by, just to take a peek. The (female) security guard unfortunately informs me that they're closed, and the place is actually 3 miles in, so walking over to look at it is out of the question. On a whim, thinking we might decide to pass by on the way back the next day, I ask about ticket prices. The cost? $45 per person! Wow! This sure must be one heck of an epic place for them to charge that much, and I can't believe it but it seems it's true. Crazy.
Now that the price of this place has gone up so much, and we drove an hour to get here, the value of seeing is higher than ever, and we try to catch at least a glimpse of the building by following Google maps satellite images to a side road form which we might be able to see it. Yep, Google maps is great for scoping out places! We never do end up finding it though, and after a bit of a neighborhood tour around the area, we finally give up and head towards T.G.I.F. for that epic feast.
During this entire trip, as we became less and less civilized with our transformation into bonafide smelly mountain men, our appearance and mannerisms reflected this even more, and we were soon a noticeably goofy cast of characters. It started when one other person and I walked into the restaurant to make reservations, playing a fun new game I encourage everyone to try. It's called "Who gets kicked out last for not wearing shoes", and we played a good game that evening, as my colorful hair and my partner's hawaiian shirt managed to keep the wait staff's eyes up top, away from our bare feet. We manage to get seated at the table, waiting for the rest of our team to park the car and enter, when I overhear a voice on the hostesses headset. "There's people in the restaurant with no shoes, we can't have that, we're going to need to ask them to get shoes." As she walks away, our eyes start darting around, looking for what we know will come next: The manager, walking towards us to inform us of our situation. We get up and go quietly, having expected him, and return soon after with boots on our feet. At this point, I would have liked to have one of two things happen: 1) We return with incredibly disgusting, muddy, hole-riddled shoes, demonstrating to all why we chose not to wear them in the first place, or 2) We return with comical shoes along the nature of fuzzy bunny slippers, giant fireman boots, or white gogo boots. Next time!
We spent the time doodling away on our kid's meals, which we wisely decided to accept after initially agreeing with the hostess that we did not need them, and as the rest of our group filled in and we ordered ridiculous amounts of food (myself excluded: Vegans get nothing but a large plate of steamed broccoli at Fridays. Luckily, I <3 broccoli!), one thing became amusingly apparent. We were an island, and the restaurant was choosing not to seat anyone near us. Oooh, wonderful college days, when your parents are no longer around to make you behave, and you still haven't learned why you should on your own! My kids are in trouble, because I don't know how I'll be able to teach them any manners...
We started driving back that evening to the Smokys, since we still had a few places to check out, but one of the tents was flooded and we had little energy to set them up again anyways, so we ended up parking the car at a rest site, where we slept in various positions: One person went out with his sleeping bag to sleep on a park bench, another girl decided hopping into the back of the SUV ontop of all of our (wet, smelly) bags would be comfy, one spread out in the passenger seat, another was already KO by the time we got there and remained seated while I shifted endlessly all over the place, attempting to find a comfy spot, before I admitted defeated and grabbed my sleeping bag to head out as well. I figured, in case of serial killers, the other guy outside would be able to laugh maniacly and wave his machete around enough to scare anyone off, and I'd put up a good fight myself as well. I did, however, take my wrapped sleeping bag with me when I went to the rest room, in case I had to pummel anyone with it.
Back to Tennesse: The Smokies by Car
We went back that morning for our last day in the park with several missions that could not have been accomplished by foot. First, we went to the south of the park, near Bryson City and Cherokee, to run along the Whiteoak Branch trail towards campsite 71. There wasn't much energy left collectively in our group for much hiking, but I get antsy sitting around in a car all day, so I was definitely up for a 10 mile jog, which became a slow crawl on every uphill we hit. I am not a person for running up hills. Not yet, that's for sure. And the one other person that came? Well, he's the reason we came out here in the first place. He'd been here once before this spring, and lost a knife on that trip. In a log, in the woods, slightly off the trail near campsite 71. And he wanted it back. I didn't care to argue, because I just wanted to get some hiking in, but utlimately we never did find that knife, not too surprisingly.
From here we moved on by car to Mingo Falls, tallest waterfall in the park, and we climbed it again, of course, with one of us (the one afraid of heights) deciding he would like to lay down in them at the top, precariously close to the edge. No falling, please! Next up was Clingman's Dome, highest peak in the park, and another hour's drive away. It's amazing how much time you spend in the car once you return to it, and it also seemed to be the most stressful time we had at all during this week, whenever we got lost or had no real destination. When we got there, I was feeling kind of queazy from what I'd say was probably a heatstroke from running earlier that day without drinking enough, and that last 0.5 miles we had to wander up towards the lookout tower seemed like the longest I'd walked during the entire trip, even though I was carrying absolutely nothing. By now, we'd almost all gotten rid of our shoes, and were wandering up the paved pedestrian road in shoes and socks. 'Cept one guy, who decided he was good enough for sandals. :P
The view from the top was pretty great, and running back down the hill was even better than running up it. And that was the last of our view of the Smokys, leading into our uneventful overnight drive back to Maryland. All in all, fantastic trip, and I can't wait to go backpacking/general adventuring again, any time, any where!