Lead Cove/Bote Mountain/Finely Cane loop

What an experience this trip was.  This is the original hike we planned on doing last weekend, but it snowed.  The last time I had been on Lead Cove Trail was just before New Years' Day last year, so I was a little familiar with it.  We did turn back about 1 mile in last year, as we were both tired and on vacation and didn't feel like hiking after all. 

Lead Cove is deceptively steep and quite short, even though you feel like you've traveled a lot further than the 1.8 miles to the top/trailhead of Bote Mountain.  Once we got up to the top though, we had some beautiful views.  The sky was sunny, not a cloud in site.  So far to date, this is the largest elevation I've hiked to, and I think it was just beautiful.  After having some tea at the top, we headed on down Bote Mountain.  This was a pretty easy trip down, a very gradual decline, but quite rocky as well.  I wasn't expecting so many rocks on a trail that was originally a road.  This was the road over the mountain in earlier times, and you could definitely tell by the width of the trail. 

When we reached the Finely Cane trailhead, one thing was VERY noticeable... MUD.  A group of horseback hikers had been through here earlier in the day, and that was VERY obvious.  The last 2.8 miles from Finely Cane to the road were solid mud, some places were at least 6 inches thick.  This made hiking hard, our boots heavy, and our demeanors angry.   We got to the road just as the sun had set and because of a blow-down, we lost the trailhead and had to backtrack a bit.  My feet were so heavy I didn't feel like I could take another step.  It was just absolutely miserable. 

When we finally crossed the creek to get back to the car, the last step I took in the water, my left boot went through the log I was standing on and plunged into the water.  I got a boot full of icy cold water.  I started sobbing.  I cried so hard I could hardly breathe all the way back to the car (about 300 feet, haha!)

After this, we had a trip to the Waffle House and spent 32 bucks on food!  We were starved!

All in all, I can safely say I've done Finely Cane twice.  The first time was in September and the trail was dry and beautiful hiking.  This time, it was an absolutely miserable trip.  So glad to get that marked off the map :)

Tremont - 12/20/09

It snowed over the weekend in the park.  We had planned on hiking from Lead Cove to Bote Mountain to Finley Cane, but the road was closed going past Tremont, so we decided to go up to Tremont, as there are so many trails up there.  We decided on Lumber Ridge and set out!

Not too far in, all the other boot prints disappeared and we were the only ones out that day, save the coyotes, who left thier tracks all around the trail.  After hiking in for about 30 minutes, we saw a manway and decided to take it, being adventerous. 

The manway was absolutely primitive.  The snow was probably a foot deep by the time we got through there.  The trail was tough going in parts and we both slipped and slid a few times.  Oh the snow was beautiful though.  We finally got to the end of the manway and discovered we were pretty close to the trailhead for Spruce Flat Falls, so we decided to hike to the falls and have a warm drink at the end. 

Spruce Flats is not on the GSMNP map.  It is a pretty easy trail with some really tricky rocky spots, which were a lot trickier in the snow.  But we made it up to the falls pretty quickly, stopping along the trail to take in the views . Thunderhead and Rocky Top were barely visible from the snow clouds and the "smoke" the mountains are so famous for.  It was definitely a wonderful hike.  We spent about 4 hours in the park and headed to Sonic for some greasy food. 

A wonderful hike.  Here's a little something seen in the park this weekend.  Not our photo.