the time we broke the law

through Arch Rock

Alum Cave Bluffs

back down the mountain

back through the Arch Rock

over the bridge, over the creek to some small waterfalls

Do you see me (below)?  It's like where's Waldo (but Amanda of course)?

We made it out of the trail without a ticket or getting arrested.  Officially law breakers.

Okay okay, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal, but technically we trespassed on one of the Great Smoky Mountain trails.  On our last day, after 2 weeks of a partial government shutdown we broke all of the rules and went hiking anyways.  We bypassed the 'CLOSED' and 'Do Not Enter' signs.  We decided that we were on vacation and came all the way out here to hike, so gosh darn it we were going to hike!  We chose to hike the Alum Cave Bluffs which was approximately a 4.6 mile round trip.  The entire length of the trail goes to the top of Mount Le Count, which totaled a 10 mile hike.  We both decided that was a little to vigorous for what we planned to do, so we hiked to the Bluff.  The hike up to the bluff was rather steep and by the time we reached the top we were quite exhausted.  We hardly made any pit-stops on the way up as we knew we could make stops on the way back down.  Once we reached the top, we sat there for a bit to catch our breath, eat a snack, drink some water and marvel at the cave ('rock shelter') and view.  The walk back down the mountain was more like a meander.  We stopped at many of the creek and small waterfall to photograph them.  It was much more relaxing coming down than going up that's for sure!

We were happy to report no bear sightings while we were hiking unlike the day before.  thank goodness!

Part 1: a trip to the great smokey mountains.  well sort of.
Part 2: a taste of moonshine
Part 3: the land of blue smoke
Part 4: every travel story has a climax, this was ours