Abrams Falls (10/15)

It is not raining this morning but rain is predicted for this afternoon.  Hopefully it will hold off until after our hike.  As we are getting the fifth wheel ready to move at 11, the mover comes over and wants to move us in 10 minutes. We put things in high gear to get everything put a way and slides moved.  They bring this big tractor over that has several hitches on it including a really cool fifth wheel hitch, wish we had one like that.  He aliens the hitch with ours and uses a lever to fit it into place and lifts the fifth wheel up.  We pull out levelers we have under the legs and before you know it we are moved to the new space. They did everything including leveling it in the new space.

So much better!!!! This is the view from our back window.







Now that is done we are ready to go hiking.  We drive to Cades Cove once there we have to take an 11 mile one way road to the trail head.  What a mess, it is bumper to bumper traffic and not moving very fast.  It takes us one and a half hours to reach the trail head. At times traffic totally stopped for about 10 minutes.
The Abrams Falls hike is a 2.5 mile, one way, to the falls. It is not as crowded as Laurel Falls, but still a lot of people.  The trail is very rocky and a lot of up hill then down hill then up hill. I am feeling so good I am actually keeping up with Joe and eventually leading him.  It has been a long time since I hiked this fast.  We are at the falls in about one hour, There were several bridges we had to walk across, I use this term loosely, the pictures will explain what I mean.

 I even go brave and crossed a couple of them without holding on, there were four log bridges in all. This is such a beautiful hike.  We both are in heaven.

One last up hill and a steep down hill and we are at the falls.  It isn't a really big falls but a lot of water is pouring down from it. It is an amazing sight.

I got brave and walked out to the falls!!!!

As much as we hate to leave, it is time to start heading back to the trail head.  That really steep down hill into the falls is now a steep up hill.  After sitting for half an hour I am having trouble breathing up it. Finally to the top and I am feeling good again and have my pace back.  On the way back we talk to a couple that said there was a bear cub above us, we couldn't see it so took their word for it.  Someone else told us that a bear and two cubs crossed the trail in front of them.  Wish I could of seen that, but we didn't have any bear sightings ourselves.  I am not wanting this hike to end but like most good things it must.  It takes us a little over one hour to get back to the truck, a total of 3 hours to hike and see the falls.
The tree canopy is so thick on the trail that we didn't notice that the sky was really getting dark and it starts to rain just as we reach the truck.
Back to the one way road and bumper to bumper traffic.  At least the scenery is nice to look at.  We pass several old homesteads.



















Traffic is so slow I was able to roll down my window to take these pictures.  Again it takes us about an hour and half to get to the exit then a quick thirty minutes to get home.

What a great day.  I am so glad the rain held off until we were done hiking.  It is suppose to rain again tomorrow so not sure what we will do.