So today officially marks the end of our first week. We've definitely covered a lot of ground and had some great adventures. Everyone is looking forward to continuing on. It is somewhat sad that a week is ALREADY gone. In some ways it feels like we just left home yesterday, in other ways it feels as though we have been gone for months. Anyway...
It was a beautiful day for hiking in the mountains. This park is huge and it just so happens to be the most visited of all the parks/monuments/sites/etc. in the national park system. So yeah, there were LOTS of people here. There also happens to be over 800 miles of hiking trails. Only Yellowstone and I think Yosemite have more trails. There are definitely popular hikes that are crowded, but there are lots and lots of places to go where it is quiet. Even the popular hikes have so many off shoots that the parking lot may be crammed full with cars stacked up on the road for half a mile either side of the parking lot on both sides of the road, yet you pass comparably few people on the actual trail. They all just sort of disappear into the woods. That is really nice.
With the exception of a short, flat little nature trail everything else we hiked went up. Lots and lots and lots of up. The road winds through the valleys, often following the water. That means that all of the hikes have to start off going up. That's not so bad, by the time you get to your destination you've done the hard part and the return trip is relaxing and easy and just makes you ready to head up to the next one.
Lots of variety in the trees in the park depending on the elevation. We went up Clingman's Dome this morning and it was all fir trees. And the temperature was about 60 degrees and breezy. That felt great as we had a steep half mile hike up to the top. There was a bit of fog at the top this morning so we only had sporadic views. Still beautiful though. Even as we cruised back down and stopped at various places for other hikes, the temperature didn't get out of the 60s until we hit the visitor center at 4.
In short, it was a perfect day for hiking.
I should take a minute to talk about the junior ranger badges, I mentioned it before. I'm just mentioning it again to remind me to dedicate time to it later. This post has gone on long enough for now.
Just one last note - we ended up leaving the park a bit earlier than intended, it started raining again. Looked like we were going to get a pretty nasty storm, but it ended up fizzling by the time we got back to the hotel. We opted to just call it a day and get our laundry done before heading out to dinner. I think that was a good plan. Looks like Charlottesville is going to be nice tomorrow so we can devote our time there to playing tourists instead of having to wait around for laundry as we originally intended.
Would have been nice to get the full 2 1/2 days here that we had originally planned, but all things considered, it worked out well. We didn't have to get rained on 3 days in a row in a tent, we are caught up on laundry, will be well rested for the long drive tomorrow and ready to camp in Shenandoah on Monday.
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