13 Years

On November 13th, Creed and I celebrated 13 years of marriage. This year we decided to spend the night in Knoxville before heading to Gatlinburg. It was an incredible week and we are so thankful for our time together!

Dinner out in Knoxville

We stayed at a hotel right in the middle of downtown so it was the perfect location to walk around and get to know the city. We really liked it and would definitely visit again.

This year, we did two hikes. The first hike was to Grotto Falls and the trail was very doable, just at around 3 miles. It was also a fairly crowded trail, since it was so short.

Grotto Falls happens to be the only waterfall in the Smokies that you can walk behind.

The following day we decided to hike to the summit of Mt.Leconte again, but to take a different trail. We ended up making a loop- we went up the Rainbow Falls trail and came back down the Bull Head trail. While Rainbow Falls was pretty to see, the Bull Head trail had incredible views as it went along the side of the mountain. 

We were prepared for the 14 mile round trip hike physically. We were also prepared with correct gear and brought enough food and water. I was NOT prepared mentally. It was so SO hard. The trail was very steep, gaining 4,000 vertical feet, which meant we also had to hike down 4,000 vertical feet. It took us right at 7 hours (including our time at the summit) and was very icy within a mile or two of the top. Plus, the trail was incredibly rocky. We had to walk staring down at our feet to make sure we had our footing- it was just plain hard. Later, we found out that these two trails are the two hardest in the Smokies. (Wish I had known that before we left...might have prepared better!)

We walked up for hours...

Halfway there... Rainbow Falls

We made it!
We inhaled numerous Cliff bars and guzzled water at this point. ;)

The summit is a little less than half a mile up from the Lodge. It was like climbing a sheet of rocky ice, so that half a mile took twice as long.

Heading back down...this part of the trail was incredible. It has been severely burned in the fire and the landscape looked like something out of a science fiction movie. (It was also the part of the trail where I was DONE walking...but we still had 4 miles to go...)

Next year, we won't be taking the long way up LeConte, although I am proud to say we made it this year. ;)