We did a lot on that trip including exploring all the shops in the Old Mill area of Pigeon Forge, Walking and discovering "the strip" in Gatlinburg including the Ripley's haunted house, a drive up the mountain to the Ober Gatlinburg resort where I took a very long, but fun, ski lift ride and discovered the new resort area known as "The Island".
Also on our agenda, on that trip, was to go hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We had looked online and found the trail we wanted to hike. It was about a mile long and led to a waterfall that looked really beautiful. But we didn't get the chance to do this.
In the two times we'd gone back since prior to our most recent trip earlier this month the opportunity to get GSMNP never came around.
While planning what to do during our second Smoky Mountain getaway this year, Paula came back to wanting to see a waterfall. She found a lot of trails with waterfalls along them. They ranged from very short (less than a mile) to extremely long (5 miles one way). We couldn't decide exactly which one we were interested in and could hike without a problem.
On the 2nd day of our getaway (Thursday September 17) we decided to go back to the Sugarland visitors center in the park for more information and advice about the waterfall trails from the park rangers.
We took along a backpack to carry the bottles of water as highly recommended by all the hiking websites we looked at.
I had put the bottles in the freezer the night before. I only took them out of our condo freezer minutes before we left for the park. The bottles were still frozen solid. This would be an interesting and memorable factor in our day.
While looking around the visitors center I asked one of the clerks at the checkout counter in the souvenir shop what book would be the best for info about short hikes with waterfalls.
A customer standing by mentioned that she and her friends had just gotten back from the hike to Laurel Falls. She told me that it was only a mile hike one way and was paved. She said also said that it was a lot of walking uphill but there were places to stop and rest along the way.
As my wife would point out later what I didn't realize about this woman was that, although she was about our age, she was dressed as and in the physical condition of an experienced hiker. She was not the "novice" we were. The reason for mentioning this observation now will come up later.
The "hiker" woman opened her guide book and showed me a picture of Laurel Falls. At that point something clicked in my head. I realized that Laurel Falls was the same falls that Paula and I had wanted to hike to back in 2011.
I remembered how much Paula wanted to see those falls on that first solo trip. I knew the hike was a lot farther than we had decided we could walk. (we haven't been very active in regard to exercise for quite a while). But although she didn't remember it, I knew this was the one GSM waterfall she had picked out herself 3 years earlier.
I excitedly told Paula about Laurel Falls and that I wanted to take her to see them. She was a little concerned about the long hike but went along with the idea.
I found out from another park ranger in the center how to get to the bottom of the trail. We pulled out of the visitors center parking lot, turned right and headed down Little River Road.
The parking area for the path was filled to overflowing. We were lucky to arrive as one car was leaving.
I put on the backpack, grabbed my cane and we headed toward the paved pathway.
It's here that I have to go into a bit of explanation in regard to how and why we spent the next hour making our way up that paved trail.
As you may be able to tell from the chart above the trail was uphill all the way. Now I knew it was a hike in the mountains but I wasn't ready for how steep it was.
Although I'm not proud of it I have to admit these days, I'm not in the best physical condition to do any long range walking, especially uphill. Climbing up this path (which most GSM hiking guides term as "moderate") was, physically, the most difficult thing I've done in a long long time.
Paula realized what a hard time I was having right from the start and kept asking me if I really wanted to keep going. She even took the backpack with the frozen water bottles and carried it herself, so I could walk more easily.
I could have easily quit and gone back down to the car less than 1/8 of a mile into the hike. But as I have told you already, this was the path to the waterfall my wife really wanted to see. We had wanted to go there for 3 years. There wasn't anything that was going to keep me from getting up that hill. I wasn't going to disappoint my wife. The song "The Things We Do For Love" by 10CC from 1978 kept going through my mind.
Although I took several pictures, these are the best examples of how steep the path was.
Here's a link to a video on my You Tube channel I shot while resting halfway up the mountain. I don't sound tired or out of breath because I had been sitting on a rock resting for a while. But believe me I was tired. Laurel Falls Hike: Halfway There
Since the path is by far the most popular in the entire GSM park, we saw plenty of people along the way.
I kept wisecracking to them about how hard it was walking up the mountain to those coming down. I was asking them how far it was and if the climb was worth it.
The parade of hikers was like a cross section of America.
The one thing I couldn't believe was the casual way some of the people were about walking the path. There was young, old, families, kids, even babies who had to be carried. There were even some people with strollers. We saw several women making the hike in sandals and even flip flops.
What really made me nervous were those parents who allowed their younger kids to run ahead of them on the path and climb up on the rocks or down in areas off the paved path. This is because there were some very steep and deep drop offs. Here's a picture that shows what I'm talking about.
The most positive thing about the hike up the mountain was some of the views that we got when there was a clearing.
We stopped to rest whenever there were rocks that would provide a place to sit or lean back to rest. I don't remember exactly where on the trail it was but at one point there was an actual wooden bench set up inside an indentation in the rocks.
One of the things that helped me keep going on the way up the path was the numbered markers. There were 11 of them and put there to mark areas detailed in the Laurel Falls brochure Paula found in the visitors center.
While I knew I had to keep going to the top, it was a lot easier to just concentrate on getting to the next numbered post. They were very helpful.
One of the negative things about the trail was the "artillery attacks" coming from above us. All the way up the trail we were bombarded with nuts falling from the trees.
It was a breezy afternoon. Every time the wind would rustle through the canopy above us falling nuts would plunge down all around us. Sometimes we were only alerted about the "attack" by the cacophony of the sound the nuts made when they hit the ground and the paved trail.
Once we got used to the fact that the falling nuts were going to be a constant element of our trip; that particular part of the circle of life for the trees, actually contributed a unique element to the ambiance of the trail.
But at one point, while I was resting on a rock I got hit directly on the head. It felt like I had been hit with good sized stone. I heard the sound of the impact echo in my head. All I could do was let out a very loud "Ouch" and grab the top of my head. It really hurt.
From that moment on the rest of the way up the trail I warned other hikers to watch out for falling nuts; because they really hurt when they hit you. One of them joked that their group surmised that the bears were in the trees pelting us for invading their territory.
The last hundred yards to the falls, thankfully, was downhill. I wasn't sure what the falls were going to look like but they were beautiful. The 80 foot high cascade is an amazing sight.
Once we were at the falls we decided to sit and enjoy them for a while. A lot of people were coming down the path, taking a few pictures and then leaving. With all that it took us to get to the top we were going to make sure this was a memorable experience. We had someone take our picture in front of the falls.
Now would be a good time to share a few more details of what happened with our water bottles.
As you can imagine the difficult walk up the side of the mountain made us both very thirsty.
Based on a tip about surviving the heat of Orlando while touring Walt Disney World, I had frozen our water so it would be cold when we wanted to drink it.
There were a couple of factors that I hadn't taken in to consideration when using the tip for our hike; how long it would take the ice to melt and weather conditions in the mountains in late September were not hot humid conditions of Orlando in the middle of summer.
It was a warm day with the temps in the low 80s but the solid ice in the bottles hadn't melted very much.
By the time we got to the top of the falls there was only a minimal amount of liquid in any of the 4 bottles we had with us. Although we did get some cold water out of them, for all intents and purposes the bottles were still frozen. We enjoyed what we had but it wasn't much.
However this situation would end in a really obvious way. Part 3 of the story at the end of this post.
Now back to the time we spent at Laurel Falls. The place set up as the viewing area for the falls was really in the middle of them. There was limited view of the lower half from the bridge that went across them.
The trail continued up the mountain past the falls and on for another 3 miles or so but it wasn't paved and just past the falls got a lot more difficult to maneuver. To get a decent view of the lower half of the falls you had to negotiate part of the continuing trail.
I didn't go near it because I was too afraid I'd slip and lose my balance. Paula wanted to get a picture of the lower half of the falls so she made her way up the path beyond the falls. She said it was very scary. Here's the best shot she got.
As we were sitting on the rocks near the falls trying to recover from the uphill hike, I was lamenting how surprised I was that it was that strenuous. The hiker woman at the visitors center said it wasn't that bad. That's when wife pointed out how the woman was dressed like a hiker.
Before I finish this lengthy post with details of our trip back down the mountain, here's some links to the videos I took while we were at the falls. The first one is a record of my first moments at the falls and the other was shot while we were relaxing and enjoying the reward we had worked so hard to get to; Laurel Falls.
Welcome To Laurel Falls
Going With The Flow
Now that I was a "veteran" of getting to the top, I eagerly cheered on and advised those who passed us on their climb. I felt a lot better on the way back down and was in a little better mood. I guess the initial effects of my sense of accomplishment were setting in.
About a quarter mile from the bottom I found a pair of sunglasses that someone had dropped. When we got down to the bottom we met the guy who had lost them. He was on his way back up to see if he could find them. Apparently they were rather expensive glasses. He was very grateful.
Once we reached the bottom of the trail there was a duel surge of emotion: exhaustion and elation. We were very very tired from the journey but also proud of ourselves for having gotten there and back.
But I would have loved to have seen a squirrel, a rabbit, a chipmunk, a deer, anything. We saw nothing. I guess that's the luck of the draw.
Now, let me finish our "frozen water bottle" story. Once we got back into our car we discovered that there was about 4oz of water in a bottle we left in the car. Finally water that we could drink but it was lukewarm. My quick thinking wife, poured the warm water into one of the bottles with the ice. The result was some cool delicious water.
So there you have the story of our hike to Laurel Falls.
The difficulty of the experience and the effect it would have on the way we felt physically for the remaining 3 days of our getaway was a real wake up call for us.
While I know there is a lot of room for improvement in my physical condition I did learn one thing from the hike. I can say for certain my heart is very healthy. If it didn't quit on me going up that mountain it's in pretty good condition.
Since the trip to Laurel Falls, both Paula and I have agreed that if we want to ever hike in the Smokies again, we will have to be in better shape and next time we'll take an easier trail.
But getting up to Laurel Falls and back down was more than a hike for us. As I mentioned earlier it was something we wanted to do for 3 years. Now we've done it. It was and will always be a significant accomplishment for the two of us as a couple. Something we will always be proud of doing.
Now I know this was a long post but it was a story I felt I needed to share.
I have one more post to share some of the other things we did during our getaway. Come back next time for stories about those.
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