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Gatlinburg-Day 2

We woke up to a beautiful day! The weather was amazing almost the entire time truthfully! So we ate our waffles for breakfast and made our sandwiches for our picnic lunch and headed off to Clingman's Dome, the tallest peak in the Smokies. We stopped by the Sugarlands Visitor center and I grabbed the Smokie Mountain Start pack of guides. I HIGHLY recommend this $5 purchase because it has all the guides to the popular sites (Cades Cove, Clingman's Dome, Newfound Gap, etc), and the auto driving guides and the day hike guides! The auto driving guide was great because it told you were to turn off to get to the different spots!

So on the way, I realize that we are going to pass the trailhead to Chimney Tops . THis is a hike that I have wanted to do since my 1st trip to the Smokies and have never done. I read that it was a 4 mile round trip strenuous hike. We were concerned that it would be too much for Joey. I mean he is only 5 afterall. So I convince DH to give this a whirl and that we'll just quit when Joey's too tired. We get out about 10:45 and DH asks if we want to take our lunch. Naaa, we'll eat after this hike. We had 2 full size bags of chips and a small cooler w/our drinks and sandwiches and I didn't want to lug that. So we head out. A little ways into it, we start seeing ppl w/hiking poles, backpacks and looking rather 'outdoorsy'. It made me pause, but I told myself that they just had a big day of hiking planned for themselves. The 1st mile was gorgeous! Lots of creek crossings, etc. We get to the halfway point and I was starting to wonder what exactly that we'd gotten ourselves into. Both boys were going full steam ahead. The trail got treacherous (for a 5yo) at this point. We were way up on the side of the mountain and at one point we passing thru the trail (that was maybe 2ft wide) and complete mud. Solid rock up and solid rock straight down. They had put up a cable wire to hang on to to help pass over this part. So Dh was gripping his dt. pepsi bottle and we were both hanging on to Joey for his dear life (literally). Still the boys were both going full speed ahead. Somewhere in that mess, I realized that I was gasping for air and wishing I had an O2 tank and someone to carry it! We made it to the base of the summit. That was VERY rewarding! However we were looking up at solid slate!!!!!! Mat was dying to get to the top and there was just NO WAY that we could possibly get Joey to the top! Slate is a dark, crumbly type of rock that is VERY SLICK (think of chalkboards!). We went up them a bit, but we stopped. Of course, I was a bit dissappointed not to go to the summit after all of that, but oh well. We were all safe and alive and still had to get back down the slate. We were also told that the view where we were was much better than the top. Not sure how, but........I tried to convince myself of that!LOL  Oh, did I mention that we reached the summit a little after NOON!!!!!!!!!! We literally had NOTHING (but DH's empty bottle of dt pepsi at this point--which was a thorn in my side on that slate since I had it in one hand and Joey int he other. Didn't leave any hands for ME to hang on to!). We got back down the mountain at 1:30!ROTFL!!!!!! ANd you know, we saw NO OTHER CHILDREN ON THAT HIKE!!!!!!!LOL

About as high up as we got:

We let Mat go a bit farther up. You can see how close we were to the summit, but this pic is VERY decieving in how easy it looks! And those are just straight drop offs on either side! THAT was our biggest fear! One wrong move and you are GONE!

This was AFTER the hike!

We headed back out on our drive to Clingman's Dome and ate lunch here:

We finally made it to our original destination: Clingman's Dome ! We were so fortunate that it was a clear day and we had a GREAT view!

This was at the base of Clingman's Dome:

The traditional geeky vacation pic:

We came home and DH and I weren't sure if we'd ever be able to use our legs again. So we thought that night in Gatlinburg that we should do the Gatlinburg Sky Lift . We went up in the daylight and came down after sunset! NEAT!

That was a wonderful day. We came home and put the boys to bed and Dh and I fell into the hot tun in hopes of it eliminating all achiness from our bodies!ROTFL!

Untitled Comment

11:24, 2008-Apr-28 .. Posted by dlynthomas

Oh I am so jealous! We use to live a couple of hours from there in Kentucky. We would drive down to Gatlinburg for the weekend. I love the Smoky Mountains so much.