Waterfalls in the Smokies--Summer 2010

Waterfalls. Well the Smoky Mountains have them. The tricky part is how do you get to a waterfall with a 3 and 5 year old on 5 mile trails. Well the answer is you find the shortest trail and hope for the best.

We took a short 3 mile trail to go see Laurel Falls. The hike wasn't bad. We saw some deer and almost got to see a black bear. A hiker said one had just crossed the path about 2 minutes before we got there. He said it was a cub so that makes you wonder where the mommy was????

Here is the view we had from the trail and this is part of the waterfall.

The rocks were slippery and we ended up with some wet feet but not as wet as we would soon get.

After Laurel Falls we had heard that there was a waterfall you could see from the road. It was called Meigs Falls. Well we found it and saw some people hiking to it so we said let's go. Now in the first picture pay attention to the log across the stream and the distance. They come into the story.

To start we had to climb down part of the far wall and then easily wade across the stream and all the slippery rocks. This only took about 15 minutes to go 30 feet.

Then we went up the stream to the log. The next picture is of the base of the log. See anything scaly in the picture. If I didn't mention we had no shoes on during this hike. To the log took us about another 15 minutes.

This is a view from the falls back to the car. It is a lot longer then it looks from this end.

Now was the hike worth it? We got some good pictures but it almost cost us a digital camera, one kid, a cousin, and snake bites. So I guess it was worth it.

Good thing we had cousin Beth to help us. She was a pro on the rocks and didn't complain about having to cross back over the river in waist deep water.

Here is mommy and brother waiting for over an hour for us to hike about 200 yards. The second picture is where Aunt Sacajawea suggest we cross back over and why we ended us soaked from our waists down in cold river water.