Labor Day Weekend - Great Smokey Mountains National Park

Over Labor Day weekend, Cheryl and I had a great time camping and hiking in the Smoky Mountains. We stayed at Tremont Hills Campground, just outside the Townsend, TN entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Tremont was actually our second choice when choosing a campground, but after getting there we found out that we were lucky our first choice didn't have any vacancies because we drove through all the other campgrounds in the area, and for tent camping, Tremont was definitely the best because there was a lot of grass. The other campgrounds were much better suited for trailers because most of the grounds were very gravelly (is that a word?), which wouldn't have been very great to pitch a tent on.

Day 2, Sunday. We drove to the other side of the park, past the "Chimney Tops", and south toward NC. We were originally planning on taking a 7-8 hour hike, starting out on the Alum Cave Trail and continuing up to Mount Le Conte, but we took our time and had a relaxing breakfast, which got off to too late of a start. We still did the Alum Cave Trail, but stopped at the cave, then turned back. That was still a pretty long hike because it was pretty steep. Again, we got lucky! Just after we started heading back it started rain! Had we started earlier in the morning and done the long hike, we would have probably just gotten to the top when the rain hit and would have had a much longer hike back in the rain, and would have been on much slipperier steeper trails on the way down from Mount Le Conte. The Alum Cave Trail was both of ours favorite trail. It was beautiful. It starts out very lush, and at only a very slight incline as it zig-zags its way back and fort across a little river (yes, there are foot-bridges). Then it starts heading up hill pretty steaply, starting out with some steps through a cave and out its top. From then on it is fairly steep as it winds itself around and past the opposite side of the Chimney Tops, and eventually emerging into "the cave", where we stopped to eat lunch before heading back.
	The "Chimney Tops" from the road as we drove to the trail head.

And now on to the trail... Right near the beginning Cheryl let out a little shriek as almost stepped on "a mouse"...but then I looked down and saw the cute little creature (below), just sitting there nibbling on something. I'm not sure what it is, but it sure was tame...or deaf & blind...because it just sat there as I crouched down inches away to take it's picture. Then on we continued up and up to the cave...and back down.

Day 3, Monday -- the end of the Labor Day weekend. The campground was nice in that it had restrooms and showers, but since it was so crowded on the holiday weekend, they (mainly the men's) were pretty darn disgusting by Monday morning. This was my only complaint about the campground. Everything was very nice, but they didn't clean the restroom/showers all weekend, and with the volume of campers on the holiday, things got filthy. Yes, it was mostly just mud, but tell me how to shower, then put your feet through nice clean underwear and pants while standing in 1/2 inch of mud. Oh well. I skipped the shower in the morning, went hiking, and showered when we got back in the afternoon...after they had finally been cleaned.

Since we needed to head back to Atlanta, we just did a short trail on Monday -- the Laurel Falls Trail. It is supposedly the most popular trail -- I think because it is short and easy since it's certainly not the prettiest in the park. It made a nice quick hike before heading back. The trail does climb up quite a bit, but unlike the other trails we did, this one was paved! Right next to the trail we saw a couple of Copperhead snakes! I'd never have even seen them if someone hadn't pointed them out. Unlike with the little mouse-like creature we saw the first day, I relied on the camera's zoom to get a picture of the snakes.

Well, that's it! If you go, I definitely recommend the Alum Cave Trail (day two's), and if you have enough time, people we met that were coming down from all the way at the top of Mount Le Conte said it was very nice up there, too.

Day 1, Saturday. We arrived around noon, quickly set up our tent, then rushed off to do some hiking. We did the Abrams Falls Trail. The trail head was part way around the Cade's Cove loop, so we got to enjoy that car ride also. When we entered the park, I noticed the sign in the first picture below. Does it mean it's okay to feed wildlife as long as it's not picking plants?

After the hike, we went back to the campsite for some dinner, some smores by the fire, then off to get some much needed sleep