Smokies Labor Day Trip - by Thomas Koenig

“ We had a great time. The weather was perfect. We hiked a little over 25 miles, we hiked 5,800 feet down hill and 5,400 up hill. It was a great workout. Both campsites that we stayed at were very nice. There were many beautiful stream crossings. Some of them we made it across dry and some we did not. On our first day out we saw a bear not more than ten yards or so off of the trail. Pretty cool. On the second day we saw a timber rattler snake on the trail and this was no small snake. It was crossing the trail and stopped at the edge of the trail and coiled up and started rattling its tail. We stayed to the other side and all made it by OK. The third day was less eventful, but we did have about a 2500 feet climb the last 4.5 miles. ”