July mini Dismeet

I am in site 27. We arrive on thrusday July 16. Funny when i booked i only had one site to pick from. Glad they still had more spots.
 
I'm in site 20, coming in on Saturday the 18th. The weekend looked pretty booked. If you looked starting on Sunday the 19th, there was more availability.

Looking forward to getting back to the park. Donna won't "hike" (as in Kris and Bert hiking), but I can talk her into 1/4 to 1/2 mile walk back to see a waterfall of something else cool. I won't tell you the reaction when were were walking up the paved path to Clingman's Dome. I told her it was only 1/4 mile and a little uphill. If I told her what it really was, she would not get out of the car. :lmao:

j
 


To be discussed with the family. Right now we are just trying to work out our June trip. We did book our August trip moving our reservation from the DE shores to NC shores just because we have no idea when DE might open state parks again.
 
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@Teamubr we did that walk to the top of clingman's dome last trip. the amount of people i saw in flip flops astonished me. Yeah so the good thing is the i have to be training unless they have canceled Boston by then (which is a possibility). That means I only have two days that i can really hike long and hard as those would be my rest days. Those days are Friday and Monday. No one is here on Friday. I figure Sunday is my long run so i might just leave that as a rest day and no hiking. That leave Sat and Wed for easy hikes (harder run days but not super hard) and then Tuesday and Thursday for medium hikes as those are easy run days. You can join us for any of them :).

I was trying like heck to avoid driving through Pigeon Forge on Saturday so i booked Thursday hoping traffic is better. Sorry still not doing Wears Valley Road.
 
Sorry still not doing Wears Valley Road.
Chicken. :duck:

I think you will be fine coming down from the north on a weekday. When we were there a few weeks ago, we drove down to Gatlinburg on a Tuesday and there was very little traffic.

I was just mapping it out. Coming through Maryville and coming in Wears Valley only adds a few minutes. Being I'll arrive on Saturday and given the incident coming in from Knoxville last time, I'll try Wears Valley Rd this time. A little hairpin turn doesn't bother me. :)

j
 


Ok planning out some hikes last night. @Teamubr what are you thinking you want to do hike wise? I know you have a bad hip, so i want to find something up your alley. @tigger92662 if you want to hike too let us know what kind of distance you are up for. Bert and I plan to help you guys out as much as possible so we can carry your stuff in our pack. We want to set you up for success. I am thinking Chimney Tops since it is 3.3 miles and pretty iconic. We have not done it yet. Also have a few others in mind but it depends on how far you want to go. There is also Abram's Falls which is 5 to 11 miles depending on where we start from. If you want to see views, we can also do Charlie's Bunion. It is a pretty epic view. It is 8 miles round trip and some climbing but we will help you guys. Let me know what interests you in terms of distance. There is also another one which is Miegs Creek trail that one is like 7 miles.

Don't worry about us, we have 3 big hikes planned, one on Friday (no one will be in yet) and then Monday and Thursday. Trying to space them out so we are not doing 14 mile hikes back to back.
 
Chimney Tops is incomplete. So sad.

It no longer goes to the twin Rock formations. Hiked it several times over the years. Now you can get to about 0.5 mile of original location and its a generic overlook. Great challenge though.

Alum Cave Bluffs has good views and awesome overhang.

Abrams Falls is 2.5 miles in and back out from Cades Cove Loop. So total 5 miles. Its gentle up and down and follows river entire length. You can swim the area below the falls to cool off. I suggest boat shoes as the rocks in stream are sharp and slick.

Very cold! I've hiked it too many times to remember but it never gets old.
 
Thanks Kris.

You can count 3 of us in on the shorter hikes. Ian is bringing a friend from work. They will both definitely be up for it, although neither has done anything like it before. My hips are doing really well since the end of last year. I haven't been doing much except sit in a chair working since March, so not too much opportunity to tear it up. I did lay about 600 pavers and build a deck around half the pool so that is something. I've also lost over 40 lbs since January. I'm sure that is helping too.

Now for the outlier. Donna's comment was, "Have a nice time!" She is not athletic. And by athletic, I mean anything that requires energy and will make her sweat. She also REALLY doesn't like outdoors much, unless it is paved. Preferably a parking lot at a shopping mall. :rotfl2:

I haven't seriously "hiked" since boy scout days. I used to backpack a ton back then, but that was A LONG time ago. So let me know what I should pick up to be safe, comfortable and not a nuisance to you and Bert.

Chimney Tops sounds straight forward. I've seen the trail head every time I drive through and thought bit would be fun. Other than Clingman's Dome, I haven't been anywhere you can't drive to.

j
 
Update for us. We have not canceled the site. We plan to return to Atlanta tomorrow. That is step 1 for keeping our trip on for pigeon forge. We have all kinds of back up plans, but for now we are still coming.

get ready to hike 😀
 
Kris,

I hope that means your mom is doing better or at least OK.

j
 
@Teamubr thanks. It’s actually Bert’s mom, and yeah I won’t say better but hanging on. She did have a hard day today more pain, but she ate a bit more than usual.
 
Kris,

I hope things are going ok with Bert's mom. I just booked a Friday July 17th at Anchor Down, north of Pigeon Forge. I originally planned on leaving Friday afternoon, after work and driving half way, but Donna was able to get off work Friday. I have a 0615 meeting, but can get out of everything else that day, so we can leave early. I checked to see if our site at Pine Mountain was available on the 17th and it isn't. Anchor Down had 1 site open so we took it. We stayed at Anchor Down back in April for 4 days. The place is amazing.

I was also looking at some shorter hikes in the park to some of the water falls. HERE is a link to the water falls in the park. See if any of these look like a fun/interesting hike.

Also let me know what I should pickup and have with us on a shorter hike.

j
 
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We are thinking Abram's Falls on Sunday. it is 5.2 miles. Figure we can see how everyone handles that. Laural Falls is a good hike that is shorter distance. We did that one last trip.

For hiking, the main thing i would say is carrying water with you. Either a pack with bottles in it or a bladder. It is probably going to be pretty hot so water is the big thing and then maybe some food but i would suspect 5 mile hikes to be about 3 hours (and yes i added buffer to my time). I kind of plan 2 miles per hour. If it is a lot of elevation can be longer. we will have a first aid kit. If you are really curious these are the things in our packs. I will list most important first

Water
Food
hand sanitizer
Map
bug spray
sunscreen
med kit
compass
towel to wipe the sweat while walking
knife
kleenex
duece of spades and tp just in case
duct tape (tiny roll)
Paracord

then we may have rain gear depending on the weather and how long we are hiking.

In the car for after the hike change of clothes and shoes, food, more water, and a towel.

If you have hiking poles they will probably help. We do have one set of extra poles we will bring them with.
 
Finally last day of work and I cleaned the condo, bert helped a tiny bit. I did most of it. Kitchen cleaned. Two bathrooms scrubbed. four loads of laundry and bert helped me vacuum.

I will be honest things are not the best but right now we are planning to head out tomorrow. At a minimum hope to get our 15 mile hike up and down Mt LeConte via rainbow falls and bull head trail on Friday and a relaxing day on Saturday.

hope is to be at storage at 8 am and be heading out by 10 am. W think we have things to do. The last time we took out the rig was oct when we went to pigeon forge :rotfl2:

am worried a bit about Mallory on Friday. It will be hot and we will be gone a long time.
 
Update: plan leave condo at 7:30 actual 7:35
Plan to leave with RV for pigeon forge 10 actual 9:10. However we were hit with the lube pump issue with the controller buzzing at us. Stopped once for a gas station but was a disaster so back on highway made it to a rest area. Futzed with connections. Still having issues but jumped back on the road.
We are now past Chattanooga.
 

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