One Last Waterfall

We had been planning to hike to Mt. LeConte via the Alum Cave trail, but decided that we’d stick with something less strenuous for our final day in the park. It rained pretty much all night last night, and we were uncertain about the weather, so we packed our raincoats.

We stopped at the campground office and chatted with the ranger there. We asked about the Jakes Creek Trail. He suggested the Little River Trail to the Cucumber Gap Trail, a little over a five-mile loop. The Little River Trail is a wide gravel road that runs along the river and is mostly level, a very pleasant walk. At the junction with the Cucumber Gap Trail, there’s a warning sign about recent bear activity. Two of the back country campsites in the area have been closed because of aggressive bears in the area.

We were glad to turn and walk along the Cucumber Gap Trail, presumably away from the aggressive bears, but we kept our eyes and ears open. This trail was narrow and a bit more challenging, including a couple of stream crossings. The forest here is dominated by tuliptrees, tall and straight, with large gray trunks reaching high into the canopy. Along the trail we saw a diverse assortment of mosses and ferns and other low plants.

The Cucumber Gap Trail ends at the Jakes Creek Trail, which returns to the parking lot which the Jakes Creek and Little River Trails share. By this time we were hungry, but we decided to drive to the Laurel Falls trailhead to have our sandwiches. About the time we got there, it started to rain fairly heavily, and it rained the whole time we were eating. Just as we finished, the sun came out.

The 1.3-mile trail to Laurel Falls is paved, but steep, and it winds along the mountain. Signs along the trail warn of “high vertical dropoffs” and the danger of falling to one’s death. It sprinkled a couple of times as we climbed, so we put on our raincoats, but it didn’t amount to much. It's too early for real fall color, but some of the trees are beginning to turn.

The 75-foot high falls divides at the top into two sections cascading down over the rocks into a pool with a bridge over it. Another shorter drop falls from this pool. The falls are beautiful—and popular. We would have stayed a bit longer to enjoy them, but we heard thunder in the distance and decided to hike back down.

That will be our final hike in the Smokies. Tomorrow we’ll head out. Our tentative plan was to go to Cedars of Lebanon State Park, but it’s a long day’s drive, so we were looking at other possibilities. In Days End we found a TVA campground on Douglas Lake near Sevierville that sounded good. It’s only twenty minutes north of Pigeon Forge. We’ll have water and electric hookups. We’ll call them once we get a cell phone signal in the morning, probably near Sugarlands.