Tuesday, October 17, 2023

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Day 1

For our first day of hiking, we decide to start with the 5.5 mile Cucumber Gap Trail, and easy trail in the trees. We were visiting the Smoky's with friends from Oregon and this was a nice easy hike to talk and reconnect. Some pics.......

 




 

The next hike we planned to do was the Laurel Falls trail - just a wee bit down the road. Well, it seemed as if everyone else in the park was there, as we could not find parking no matter how many times we drove by the parking lots. We had learned at The Visitor's Center than Smoky Mountain National Park is the most visited park in the US - over 14 million people a year and the busiest month? October, Ugh. So that limited our ability to do more than one hike a day, as if we weren't parked by 8am, it wasn't going to happen. Bummer.

So after some lunch and showers, we took a drive and explores some arts and crafts areas/stores nearby. Not our favorite thing to do, but it was nonetheless nice and there was an opportunity for one more photo for the day......



 

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