vacation pictures - smoky mountain hiking trip

The Pinball

we recently spent 10 days hiking in the smoky mountains. it took me a week to figure out how to post these pictures but i did it, effectively climbing another mountain. thanks to my son!

kidrock standing in front of rainbow falls. this was a 6 mile RT hike. falls were at the turnaraound point.

littlerock on the trail. she was such a trooper. great pace setter. even ran the last quarter mile out on a 6 mile RT hike.

they don't call them the smokies for nothin'! this was the view from our cabin porch.

a stream we'd seen on one of the hikes. we'd had one 24-hr period of heavy rain which made all the waterfall hikes really beautiful, falls and streams were really flowing!

ramsey cascade - the best falls we saw. this was an 8 mile RT "strenuous" hike. my kids were great. it took us 5 hours to hike in and up to the falls, sit around, refuel and hike back down. i was so proud of them, some of the uphill was very steep and rocky. they were awesome! i, on the other hand, needed a hoist a time or two. Embarassed

and i also learned the slide on your azz down the rocks move to get back down. strange as it was, we were completely alone in this forest except for an occasional pass by of another person. we actually heard a huge tree fall in this forest; it sounded like a thunder boom even though the sky was clear. when we got to the top, we met a guy who'd hiked this trail alot and he asked us if we heard the tree fall....so weird. there was alot of old growth forest on this trail too, huge poplar trees, lots of ferns, i kept looking for the raptors to attack. actually, we saw no wildlife at all in spite of the fact that we were in such a desolate area...nothing...and that's a good thing cuz i would have soiled myself instantly at the sight of a bear or a bobcat anywhere on that trail.

this was such a great vacation. we avoided the tourist traps and hung in the national park. basically discovered a love of hiking that i hope i can do more of in the future. this was our second year in this spot and we'd probably go back one more time for stuff we missed.

favorite T shirt: quit whining and hike it.