Day #145 – Porter Creek Trail

Gatlinburg TN

We met up with Linda and Debbie around noon today.  They had done some extensive hiking yesterday and were worried their muscles would stiffen.  So, they talked us into a short walk – really a stroll – to see some nice water falls on the Porter Creek Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  They even offered to let us carry their day packs.  Unfortunately, I failed to notice the copy of Tom Sawyer on Debbie’s night stand.

The drive to the trail head was exciting.  We drove over single-lane roads with pot holes that threatened to swallow the Prius.  Debbie likes to drive and read map at the same time which allowed me plenty of time to practice my death grip on the dashboard.  Linda and Kelly, in the back seat, were oblivious to most of this; they chatted the whole way about all the pretty trees.

It was a beautiful trail.  It was wide and soft, with a gentle rise.  We passed paths leading to foundations of old homes, an old barn, a hikers’ cabin, and an old family cemetery.  We also passed hundreds of wildflowers.  Debbie and Kelly stopped at each flower to take photographs.  Linda and I walked on. 

OK, I doubled back for the cemetery.  I’m a sucker for an old cemetery.  Linda came back, too, and the four of us wandered around the graves, softly reading the markers to each other.  When you see many people, mostly children, dying at roughly the same time, you can figure there was an epidemic of some sort.  It’s impossible for me to imagine the grief and helplessness their parents must have felt.  So many deaths would have affected the whole community, not just one family.

The trail continued upward, rising a total of 640 feet over the course of our walk to the falls.  At one point, I lost patience with all the photography and just kept walking.  I later found out that Debbie and Linda wanted to turn back (They wanted to get back to camp before dark and were anticipating an evening of cards.), but Kelly wouldn’t let them.  She figured I was on a roll and should be encouraged with my forward, and upward, movement.

The falls were beautiful.  We stopped and took pictures, then headed back down.  While the walk went more quickly because all the flowers and bugs had already been photographed, going downhill is really hard on my knees.  We took a break by walking off the trail to see an old barn, and a cabin built by hikers.

The barn was cantilevered.  Apparently, back in the day, buildings were taxed based on their dimension on the ground.  So, this farmer had built a barn that touched the ground no more than absolutely necessary.

When we finally got back to the car (total journey 3.7 miles), I was so sore I could barely move. 

We made taco salads and burritos for dinner, using soy crumbles Kelly had found at the grocery store.  Afterward, we settled in to cards.  Linda and I again trounced Debbie and Kelly.  Debbie would not give up.  She wanted to play until she won.  Linda suggested we open the wine.  For some reason, we all got tipsy pretty quickly.  By 2 A.M., I was dozing between turns, but we were still winning.  Linda finally called a stop to the torture and we all rolled off to our respective beds.