Photo Blog with Waterfalls, Hiking, Outdoors, and other Adventures
Woke up and left Gatlinburg with some time for day hiking before the next destination. Cold and wet weather killed most of our planned hikes, but we decided to try our luck on Max Patch, one of the most popular viewpoints along the Appalachian Trail. Remember that smoky fog from yesterday? Well that doesn’t look too … Read more
Stayed overnight in Gatlinburg because it was close to the Smokies. The area is very tourist-y with many shops & attractions but we didn’t have time for most of these things. Directly behind the hotel there was a small rapids/waterfall – seems like these are everywhere! Aside from putting pins in my live G-map, I … Read more
Several days into the trip and we finally made it to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. First stop was Clingmans Dome, the highest point in Tennessee and the infamous Appalachian Trail. Views here looking over the mountain range are normally quite amazing, however today Mother Nature had other plans. Driving up the 7 mile … Read more
Yesterday was a “zero day” for hiking – Kelly had job interviews and I visited my family in Knoxville. Late start today but we briefly visited Panther Creek State Park while still in the Morristown area. We chose to do the Point Lookout Trail loop in a somewhat modified fashion due to road closings for tree … Read more
My friend Kelly finished work early and we finally got to hike together! Due to limited daylight we headed to nearby Burgess Falls State Park which is south of Cookeville in Putnam County. Reed a.k.a “Darkness“, the black lab in photos, loves hiking and is extremely well-behaved (although she gets slightly excited for squirrels). A … Read more
After leaving Waterloo Falls, I was itching to do some actual hiking. Next stop was Cummins Falls State Park which was only 15 minutes away by car. Weather today was nearly perfect – sunny and about 60 degrees, which felt like summer compared to what I left in Wisconsin. I started by hiking the Upstream … Read more
A few months back, I started chatting online & made friends with a fellow hiker/traveler who lived in Tennessee (totally not a murderer, more on that later). I had some vacation time to burn so I booked a last-minute trip and visited the Volunteer State in mid-November hoping to catch the last falls colors. Ended … Read more
The final stop on this particular weekend tour was Aztalan State Park located east of Madison, WI. I had known going in that this particular site wasn’t “epic” in any sense outside of the cultural/historical appreciation aspect and wasn’t expecting much. Thankfully with that mindset I wasn’t disappointed. First – the rain. I finally remembered … Read more
Rain continued all night and into today with no sign of stopping. Thanks to a friend’s advice from Idaho to “be here now”, there was no way I could let it stop me. To begin my trip home, the next stop was Rib Mountain State Park. This is a popular ski destination and is heavily … Read more
Not sure I’ve mentioned this but waterfalls are pretty cool. The area around north central Wisconsin has plenty of them too. Next stop was the Dells of the Eau Claire River State Natural Area in Aniwa, WI (near Wausau). I didn’t know much about this location before visiting, but glad I stopped here. I parked … Read more