I can hear the rain on the leaves outside as I lie in the room. We moved upstairs to room 220 today. It has 3 large sliding windows that will most likely stay open as long as we’re here. It has cooled off slightly with the rain. Everything seems to slow down a bit in a sleepy sort of way.

Today we went hiking and tubing. I’m afraid the hike turned out to be a bit more strenuous than we were expecting. First we hiked up the trail to Juney Whank Falls. The directions we got from the Inn said “an easy 1/4 mile.” It was more like a “1/4 mile stair climb.”

There were quite literally stairs built into the side of the mountain. Logs were sunken into the ridge to make a terrace to help with erosion. The falls where great. There is a foot bridge – board with a handrail – that crosses the stream just below the falls. You can stand directly at the bottom and look up at the 40ft. cascade.

Then we followed Deep Creek – Indian Trail – Loop Trail – back to Deep Creek. It was about 10 AM so we had the trail mostly to ourselves. A short distance up Deep Creek Trail from the trail head, Tom’s Branch falls tumbles down a cliff to join Deep Creek. Our directions say that it drops 80 ft. It didn’t look that high until we got to an angle to see the top most cascade through the trees.

Up the trail about another 1/2 mile was a sign that said “No Tubing beyond this point.” This is where Indian Creek trail and Deep Creek trail split. We followed Indian Creek Trail to Indian Creek Falls. The sunlight filtering through the trees made Indian Creek Falls seem the most magnificent. It only drops for 25 feet, but the volume of the water is incredible. The temperature dropped as we climbed to the bottom of the falls. I felt like time had stopped and we were looking at something original from creation. I could have stayed all day, but that’s true for most places around here. We left the falls and headed up Indian Creek Trail.

We walked Indian Creek Trail for what seemed like an eternity. I wasn’t sure that we were going the right way, as I thought we were supposed to go in a clockwise direction. We finally reached the turn to Loop Trail, and I figured out we were on the right trail. We turned left onto Loop Trail and started climbing. We thought the climb would never end! We just kept going and going up and up. The trail kept switching back, so we could never tell when we were getting close to the top. We finally made it to the top/midpoint of the Loop Trail after 1/2 mile of climbing.

At the midpoint of Loop Trail is another trail that follows the mountain ridge line. At the top was a preview of the views offered by the Appalachians. The trail down (what goes up..) was pretty much a shelf cut into the side of the mountain. When you looked over the edge, you could almost see the valley floor several hundred feet below. After descending on Loop Trail, we re-connected with Deep Creek Trail, making the loop in a counter clockwise direction. We followed Deep Creek Trail back to the trail head; this time the trail was covered by people lugging inner tubes to float the Deep Creek.

After our hiking adventures, we grabbed lunch and headed back to Deep Creek. On the road, there are a few places that rent inner tubes and other tubing paraphernalia. We got two tubes and headed back to the park. By now, especially on a lazy Sunday afternoon, the park was packed. There must have been 200 cars full of people parked anywhere there was room. We got lucky and found a parking place quickly, changed into our suits, and took off down Deep Creek Trail once more.

We passed several groups along the way, obviously on their second or third trip up the trail. We reached the sign for “No Tubing Beyond this Point” and found a line of about fifty people! I couldn’t believe that the trail was empty earlier, but now we had to wait in line just to get in the water. We finally got to the water and boy was it cold! I let out a yelp as I jumped into the tube, thoroughly embarrassing April

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We bumped along down the creek for an hour or so. The tube would hit a rock and start spinning, so that it was hard to watch where you were going. Sometimes you would just get stuck on a rock, thankful for the wooden bottom suspended in the center of the tube. There were several rapids along the way, some with drops of two to three feet. The tube would tip to the point where it felt like you where going to fall out, but we never did. We only succeeded in splashing ourselves with freezing water while trying to stay on the tube.

After our tubing adventure, we picked up some supplies for our hike tomorrow. Then we crashed at the inn for a little while, bathed, and got ready for dinner. A few hours before our reservation time, we decided to drive to the trail head we’re taking tomorrow. We went up US 19 to Cherokee, then took 441 toward Gatlinburg.

We got close to Newfound Gap, but had to turn around in order to make our dinner reservations. Based on the spectacular views from 441, tomorrow’s hike should also be worth writing about!