The Summer 6

 April 2-5, 2021 We are on a quest to fill more pages of our National Parks passport book and also to see more NC waterfalls so we decided to do a Covid-safe trip to a house near Cherokee, NC to see some of the GSMNP for spring break. We hit a cold snap and didn't do any long hikes but we saw a few waterfalls and a lot of the park so all in all it was a success! The day we arrived we went to the Deep Creek area of the park near Bryson City, NC. First we went to Juney Whank Falls on a 0.6 mile loop. There is a bridge across the falls which puts you right next to it but it's hard to take a picture of the whole thing. It is about 35 feet high.  Next we continued to Tom Branch Falls. This was very picturesque, a 75 foot high multilevel cascade. It flows into the Deep Creek on the opposite side of the bank as the trail. We thought this would be a wonderful place to cool off during the summer. It was about 0.2 of a mile from the parking lot on an easy path. After passing Tom Branch,...

 March 14, 2021 A few weeks ago we went to Crowder's Mountain with Ben's Cub Scout group to do a little hiking. We have been here before but every time we come we don't seem to remember how steep and difficult the trail is! We parked at the Linwood Access to do the Backside Trail. It is labeled as strenuous but only 0.9 miles to the top. That doesn't seem too bad but it's a pretty steep incline and includes 336 stairs! I'm not sure if anyone in our group measured but according to the internet, it is 666 feet of elevation gain and total of 1.9 miles. There is a reward of nice views including the Charlotte skyline but it's also a steep drop over the edge so we needed to keep a close eye on certain children. We did it and don't plan to come back again real soon!