Smoky Spring Break 2

In the morning we feasted on bacon, eggs, and hot cocoa, then played our long delayed Great Dalmuti game.  After several hard fought rounds, I pulled out a victory to become the reigning Spring Break Great Dalmuti.  Since the girl’s enthusiasm for another hike was very low, only JP and I did the planned Rainbow Falls trail hike. On paper, it only takes 20 minutes to drive from our cabin to the trailhead on Cherokee Orchard Road just a few miles up from Gatlinburg, but thanks to road construction in Gatlinburg, it ended up taking nearly an hour. Despite the snow and traffic, the trailhead parking lot was still full and we had to park at the auxiliary lot.  

The trail to Rainbow Falls climbs steadily for about 2.7 miles up Monte Le Conte, primarily following near the creek, with four or five creek crossings along the way. At the lower end, the actual trail was muddy as the heavy foot traffic kept the snow melted, but drop in temperature higher up and the continued snowfall caused the trail to become completely icy and at one point our tracks were getting rapidly covered over. 

 On a sunny winter day, I am sure you would have some spectacular views of the valley, but because of the snowstorm, we never had much more than a vague sense of the open space below us.  But the snow covered trail, particularly along the creek sections, was quite beautiful.  Unfortunately, the snow was falling so rapidly that it was difficult to keep the camera lens from having water spots or fogging, so a lot of my pictures ended up with blurry splotches in them. The last couple of bridges we crossed were particularly cool as the water cut interesting channel patterns in the ice.

 Despite the rapidly falling snow, we hike most of the way with no gloves or hat and our jackets open because the exertion from the uphill hike kept us sweating and toasty warm

 After about 75 to 80 minutes of hiking, we reach Rainbow Falls. When we did, we kind of had to laugh because on this day Rainbow Falls was not very photogenic.  Much of the falls had frozen over, leaving only one section cascading down. Furthermore, because Rainbow Falls is probably 60 to 70 feet from the trail and because of the fast falling snow, the falls don’t show in the camera lens through the white-out very well at all. While scrambling up the boulders /river bed to get a closer shot is not be a problem in the summer, doing so when it was all snow and ice cold water seemed foolish.  So we had to be content with a few poor photos.

The trail continues on past Rainbow Falls to the top of Mount LeConte, and we had briefly considered maybe going all the way to the top, but given the conditions and the fact that we wouldn’t have been able to see anything from the top anyway, we decide against it.

 On the descent it stopped snowing, which gave me a chance to take some better (I hope) pictures.  I was very grateful for the new hiking poles I got for Christmas and as they made what would have been a slippery and therefore somewhat hazardous descent into something quick and fun. I am also grateful for the new wool socks I got after the last blister-filled Smokies trip.  Although my feet and hiking boots got pretty wet by the end, my feed stayed comfy warm.

After enduring another long traffic jam in Gatlinburg, we made it back to the cabin.  A nice soak in our hot tub on the back porch overlooking a tiny little creek was just the thing for winding down a wintry day.  After that, we played more pool and some Boogle, where JA totally cleaned up in the final round to win going away.  After a late dinner, we watched “Brave” so that we could say we saw some bears in the Smokies.