Bumming Around the Smokeys

[Jerry D.]

MY wife and I spent the week leading up to the Becker gathering in Tennessee. We spent Monday and Tuesday down in Nashville. Tuesday evening we drove over to Gatlinburg where we pretty much bummed around the Smokey Mountain National Park Wednesday and Thursday.

Nashville was nice. We'd like to visit again. For some reason, all the breweries were closed until Wednesday or Thursday, but I did find a coffee shop ran by the 12 Monkeys.

I didn't see a time traveling Bruce Willis nor does it seem like I have a debilitating virus, but the coffee was excellent.

Wednesday in the Smokeys was a bit hazy....

This was the hike up to Clingmans Dome that morning.

And the view....

Someday....

Quit taunting me! Someday.....

randomly picked a short trail and headed down it.

It was a nice hike with some good view that led to this waterfall. Between my dead phone and dodging raindrops prevented me from snapping too many pictures on this one.

Thursday morning we headed out to Cades Cove to bum around a bit before getting some lunch and moseying up to Ethan's.

We found a 5 mi round trip trail and decided to stretch our legs a bit. It was a nice, short trail with some decent water views, vistas and a nice waterfall at the end.

We both had our Maguas, of course.

There was a pretty vein of quartz in a rock that I thought matched her Magua quite well...

Here are the falls the trail led us down to. It was a real nice spot to sit down, enjoy a snack and take it all in.

An ominous looking sky and rumbles of thunder got us back up and moving. On the way out we stumbled across this....

We believe it was ditched as the trail got more rugged by the group of dads who were carrying their kids on their shoulders we passed a mile back, but it still made us think "what the hell?"

It was a pretty nice trip. The Maguas made great little hiking companions. My wife absolutely loves hers. I can't wait to head back to the mountains and spend some proper time out there camping and hiking and I also need to get better at taking an organizing pictures for show and tell.

 

[floridaclipper]

Thanks for posting. That looks like Abrams falls. Glad you had a great time. I was hiking up there a few weeks ago on a couple of other trails and can't wait to go back. Did you stop in SMKW while you were there?

 

[The Warrior]

Beautiful area man, wow. Thanks for posting.

 

[TMHunt]

Well I met up with you at Ethans so I know that was fun, but jealous I didn't get the few days before that you did. Sure looked like a blast! (Those knives don't look to shabby either! )

 

[Jerry D.]

Thanks for posting. That looks like Abrams falls. Glad you had a great time. I was hiking up there a few weeks ago on a couple of other trails and can't wait to go back. Did you stop in SMKW while you were there?

The second one is Abrams falls. :thumbup: I forgot what the first one was. We were literally driving around, saw a pull off with a short trail and went for it.
No! I ddin't get a chance to drop in SMKW. I was hoping to hit SMKW, the Coleman store and the Lodge store; however when we drive through the first time it was too late and when we left, we went through the park and up to Maryville to head over to Ethan Becker's place. I can't wait to go back and plan out a few longer hikes though.

Beautiful area man, wow. Thanks for posting.

No problem! It was gorgeous.

Well I met up with you at Ethans so I know that was fun, but jealous I didn't get the few days before that you did. Sure looked like a blast! (Those knives don't look to shabby either! )

You can't be too jealous. You got to go the the baseball game and watch the Indians get stomped.
It was a great little anniversary trip that was capped off spectacularly with the Gathering at Ethan's place, but I could have spent a lot more time down in the mountains with no agenda.

Hey, you like those knives? Cool... We do too, but the maker has gone hollywood on us.