Happy Thanksgiving

In honor of our 900 Miler Challenge, Rod made the pumpkin pies to reflect our goal. MmmmmMmmmm!

Happy Thanksgiving from us to you and yours!

Rod's View of the Chimney Tops Hike

 This gives an idea of how steep the decent was from the summit of the chimneys

 The 900 challenged has already created some very romantic moments.  Here is Nathan and Rebecca headed to the top.....hand in hand, together!!!

The trail to the Chimney tops include hundreds of stairs made from logs.  

Road Prong Trail Plus Some Appalachian Trail Plus A Bit of Chimney Tops Trail (Is This Title Long Enough Yet?)

Our friends Rod and Pam, two of our six-member team, arrived in Townsend Friday night. Their son and daughter-in-law, the rest of our team, had previous plans, so we went on ahead without them. How's that for team-work? So we poured over the maps and decided very scientifically that we should add mileage in an area that we already had worked on. So Road Prong Trail it was, with a 1.7 mile section of the Appalachian Trail at the beginning and a 0.9 section that we had already done when we hiked the Chimney Top Trail (the easy end though).

Road Prong Trail is a historic old roadbed that linked Sevierville, TN to Cherokee, NC. It was a toll road, according to Hiking Trails of the Smokies and was called the Oconaluftee Turnpike. "Tolls were charged for wagons (25-75 cents), pigs and sheep (1 cent each), cows (2 cents each), and horse and rider (6 and 1/4 cents)." The trail follows Road Prong Creek and includes 10-12 creek crossings. It has around a 1500 foot elevation change, which for us would be a decrease in elevation.

Saturday morning, November 14, 2015, we dropped a car off at the Chimney Tops Trail parking area, and drove on up to Newfound Gap with the remaining car. We picked up the Appalachian Trail  from the Newfound Gap parking lot and started out. It was chilly, in the upper 40s, but we quickly warmed up, as this section of the AT was uphill for 1.7 miles. Going from this direction, instead of starting at Chimney Tops Trail, makes most of the hike a down-hill once reaching Road Prong Trail.

The first thing we noticed was the hoarfrost covering the ground in many areas. What a delicate, yet strong piece of art! Hoarfrost literally pushes dirt aside, yet breaks so easily.

We all had waterproof boots except for myself, which is something I intend to rectify shortly.

Pam sitting underneath a natural cave made from the roots of a large tree. 

This gate was built to block off a section of the forest from the ravages of the wild hog.

Chuck photobombing in the background ...

We turned off the AT and got onto Road Prong Trail at Indian Gap on Clingman's Dome Road. We were passed on the AT by two groups of hikers, otherwise, had the whole trail to ourselves, unlike other trails in the park. We picked up Road Prong Trail and started going downhill almost immediately. We stopped shortly for lunch, sitting on the side of a very steep hill that ended in the Road Prong Creek far below. It was a sunny, peaceful place for lunch, and thankfully my lunch did not go plummeting down the hill. (Nor did I).

We hit the stream crossings. They weren't much to start with.

But shortly I realized the value of waterproof hiking boots/shoes. I didn't actually slip, thanks to Rod's trekking poles, which we all made use of, passing around like the hot commodity they actually were. Trekking poles are on all our mental lists of things we need for future trips.

This log jam is referred to in Hiking Trails of the Smokies. It is immense, when seen in real life. A photo simply does not do it justice. It is hard to imagine the enormity of the flash flood/land slide that brought all this together.

The trees were almost completely bare of leaves, leaving the branches a soft grey. At one point, the lighting was so perfect I thought that the branches looked like smoke or fog. And for once, the picture did do it justice, as this is what it really looked like.

Walking through the rhododendron at one point, I was hit with the overwhelming smell of wet dog. I mentioned it, and Rod said, "Try not to think about what that really is." I wonder how many bears we walked by that we simply didn't see? Maybe none, but they were definitely in the area at some point recently.

This is one of two waterfalls on the Road Prong Trail, this being the 15 foot falls.

This giant boulder is also mentioned in Hiking Trails of the Smokies as having a yellow birch growing out of it. The picture again doesn't do it justice.

We were over half-way down Road Prong Trail, when we met this gentleman going UP Road Prong Trail, and in a hurry. We were surprised to see another human on the trail as all we had seen since starting the trail had been ... well, each other. We stopped to chat with him for a moment. We found out that he's on his FOURTH MAP. WHAT??? That even happens? This means he will have completed the 900 Miler Club 4 TIMES when he completes the fourth map. Our conversation was brief, as he was in a hurry with about 2 1/2 hours of day light left. He was completing a 25 mile loop that he had started earlier (much earlier than us) in the day. We found out that he was from Alabama and drove up to the Smokies two Saturday's each month. We wondered what his motivation was ... he said he had  6 daughters and one son, and a wife that called him crazy. He gave us a bit of info about a shuttle driver named Gene Laney who drops hikers off at the more remote locations in the south-west part of the park down by Fontana Lake. The driver is an 84-year-old walking history book. I hope we get the chance to meet him. Crazy, as he called himself, said that he has used his shuttle services 12 or so times and that he will drop off a hiker anywhere at any time, even 3 am. Sounds intriguing.

We parted ways, and I told Pam that I would have loved to sneak a look into his day pack and see what he considers to be essential. I did notice that he had trekking poles. His shoes were not waterproof, and his feet were soaking wet. He had told us that he didn't like waterproof boots, because if they got water in them, it would just slosh around and add weight.

The boulder below is also mentioned in the Hiking Trails of the Smokies. It is compared to a giant ax-head driven into the earth. Now that comparison I can see.

This is the 60 foot water fall, seen from a distance. 

We finally reached the Road Prong Trail/Chimney Tops Trail Junction, and the remainder of the hike was going over familiar ground. 

We made it back to the car, hopped in and headed back up to Newfound Gap to pick up our other car. It's great to have partners, this being just one of the reasons why.

The photo below was taken before we started the hike on our way into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park from the Townsend, TN side.

And although this is out of sequence, and looks a little painful, this shows how handy the trekking poles were. And how they were passed around ...

So ... Trip Stats:

Miles hiked: 5 miles even

Miles added to total: 4.1 miles

Total Miles Hiked for Goal: 7.4 miles

Remaining Miles: 900+ (still)

You've got to start somewhere ... right?

Laurel Falls

So I am convinced that this 900-Miler Goal will take us a NUMBER of years. Like maybe twenty. We will be using walkers by the time we're done. (Or maybe this will be what keeps us out of walkers ...) We have struggled to find the time to make it back to the Smokies, and this year, we missed the colors almost completely. But, as my favorite motto goes ... Better Late Than Never.

But we made it back for the weekend of November 13-15, we both took a rare day off Friday and finally made it to Townsend around 2 pm. We headed straight to the Sugarlands Visitor Center and were finally able to buy one of those $1.00 park maps that we needed. Our goal was to catch up with our friends and complete the Laurel Falls hike and Clingman's Dome hike, both of which they have completed on previous weekends.

While we were at the visitor's center, I happened upon a book called Hiking Trails of the Smokies. I'm a rookie, give me a break, OK? Low and behold, it has ALL of the hiking trails on the official park map listed in it. It even comes WITH an official park map! Well, that was a no-brainer purchase.   

From the visitor's center, we drove over to Laurel Falls. We hiked on up and got our pictures, as you can see below. The weather was perfect, cold with the breeze, but warm with the sun, which shown in our eyes the whole way up to the falls. I caught a rainbow in the falls and we hiked to the base of the second fall and looked around a bit. 

I was surprised to realize that in all our years of going to the Smokies, I have never actually been to these falls, which makes this goal of ours so much more exciting for me. We have come to the Smokies on many occasions and driven around Cades Cove. I still LOVE the cove and would never mind driving around there. I've actually hiked it on at least two separate occasions and would again given the opportunity, but despite that, there is SO much more to the Smokies, and I'm glad that we are giving ourselves the opportunity to discover it all.

Some kind stranger took our photo:

The rainbow in Laurel Falls: (It's there, look closely)

The lower part of the falls below the bridge. I would love to capture the whole falls on one photo.

We did it! Not a challenging hike, but a beautiful one none-the-less. 

So, when we got back, we headed in to Gatlinburg because dear hubby FORGOT HIS HIKING SHOES. REALLY? Yes, really. But it's actually not that bad, as we were planning on stopping on the way home at a store and picking him up some new ones. Instead, we were able to get some for him to break in on Saturday (a necessary evil).

Once we made it to the hotel and looked over our maps, we realized the insignificance of the hike to Laurel Falls we had just made. Not only will we have to hike it all over again at some point, but it is barely a millimeter on the park map. A tiny segment of trail completed. I MEAN TINY. I got this overwhelming feeling that this was not something we would ever really ACCOMPLISH. But I have been reminded that it is not the patch that I am striving for, but the journey along the way, which is the absolute truth. 

We will all be hiking Laurel Falls again, because it is the gateway to a number of other trails that we will have to hike to reach our goal. I look forward to the journey!!

STATS: 

Laurel Falls - 1.3 miles 

Total Mileage Completed - 3.3 miles

Remaining Mileage - 900+ miles (this won't change for a while, I suspect)

The above statistics are accurate for Chuck and Heidi, other team members statistics may vary slightly.