Our travels have taken us along a most non-liner route. While we were definitely enjoying the waterfall hiking, we found ourselves closer to the Christmas Holiday and as Wes would say; "in a ‘geographical oddity’" being almost equal distance from anyone we knew. In the spirit of making travel plans based on something we wanted to see or do, I told Wes I would love to hike on Christmas Day. We were approaching the first anniversary of my grandmother’s passing, and a few years had slipped by since my grandfather’s passing as well. I wanted to hike on Christmas day in honor of their memories.
Three generations of nature & hiking enthusiasts (back: Kristy Walker; middle: Paula & John Dickinson; front: Pat Dickinson) at the base of the world's largest spruce (Olympic National Forest, 2011)
My grandfather was an avid hiker, and the story goes that my first hiking trip with him was before I was born. There is family lore about my mother being upset regarding either carrying a loaf of bread, or a can of beans, on a backpacking trip that made everyone think she was crazy. Turns out she was apparently crazy with hormones. Many years later, the first overnight trip that I remember was when I was around 12 years old. My parents had taken my brother and I camping all our lives, but we were always in a tent or pop-up camper. Granddad, however, was a pragmatist. He basically lived the “lightweight backpacking” creed before it was cool, and used to carry only essentials. I remember him telling me we would all be in our sleeping bags falling asleep under the stars. I froze in fear, “But what about bears?!” True to his stoic demeanor, he replied with a slight chuckle, “What about bears? You can’t watch the meteor showers through a tent Kristy.” I was aghast. We were going hiking somewhere near Mt. Rainier and I knew there were bears….and all I could think of was the photos of the pop-up camper shredded by a bear we had seen somewhere along our camping travels. As my imagination went into hyper-drive, I recalled horror movies of campers being tossed around in their sleeping bags by super-human bears. I was also certain that out here in the pacific northwest--where the trees were giants and the ferns as tall as me—that superhuman bears were definitely a real possibility. I think even Big Foot hailed from these parts! What was I going to do? I wanted to go hiking, but…
Well, I did go and cannot recall any meteor showers as I cinched my sleeping bag closed tight around my head. What I do remember, though—was locking myself inside my sleeping bag one morning because I had forgotten to bring a hair brush. I had bed head and was not coming out! No way and no how! Suddenly bears were a distant memory. Somehow my father was able to convince me to get out of the sleeping bag and I recall my grandfather muttering something like “boys are so much easier.” That actually may have been the phrase that got me to come out of the sleeping bag. ;-)
This and other memories of my grandparents were flooding my mind as I thought how much fun it would have been to go hiking with them on Christmas Day. So, with encouragement from Wes, we pointed Hank and Glory north towards TN. The initial plan was to go from the Carolinas into TN, but weather had forced us to detour towards warmer weather. Now we felt pretty good after all our ‘winterizing’ we had done to Glory that we could handle whatever the TN mountains threw at us. And the coolest thing was that most of the state parks were still open! So I searched for the ‘best state park’ and we ended up at Fall Creek Falls and did the namesake hike on Christmas Day.
Fall Creek Falls from overlook perspective
We woke up to a sunny day with relatively mild temperatures in the 40s for winter. Perspective is everything — these temperatures were really cold to us only a few short months earlier, but now felt great! We drove to the trail-head with the boys in tow; took a few moments to take-in the view from the overlook; then headed down to the Fall Creek Falls trail.
This was our first time hiking or camping in TN and I had no idea what to expect. The rocky trail was well-maintained and sprinkled intermittently with hikers smiling almost as big as I was. Grammy and Granddad would have loved this! Well, maybe not Grammy—as she begrudgingly would go along to make sure Granddad stayed safe but always enjoyed herself anyway. She said she grew up in the sticks and didn’t understand why anyone would willingly go back out there. The trail was slippery and rocky requiring focused attention as it quickly descended over 400’ into the gorge in under half a mile. Once it felt like it was leveling off, huge rock formations became more visible; seemingly exploding out of the ground as they jettisoned straight-up, hundreds of feet into the air. Simply awesome geology here!
Callie & I negotiating the rocky descent
Wes and Buddy at a crevace colloquially referred to as the “AC duct” for its blast of welcomed cool air in the summer
Keeping your gaze on your footing proved difficult with such awe-inspiring scenery. WOW!!! The mountain walls were alive, with water seeming to seep from every crack and crevice in the rocks. Callie and Buddy were super excited and the narrow slippery trail left me vacillating between exhilaration and terror, as the trail became smaller and narrower the closer we approached the base of the falls. At one point, all I could think of was mountain goat trails my brother and I had seen on a backpacking trip to New Mexico. Man these were really narrow trails!
Callie pausing to look at the almost non-existent trail
As we made it to the area close to the base of the falls I coaxed the boys to lie on a rock and pose for a photo while getting sprayed. Buddy seemed to enjoy it despite the roar of the pounding water a short distance away. Callie had his ‘nervous Nellie’ face on and ensured I would not venture any closer to this dangerous new hiking feature.
Nervous Callie and Buddy getting misted from the falls
This was as close as I could get the hounds to the roaring waterfalls
We spent as long as we could near the base of the falls, but our senior citizen Goldens (8 and 12) were not as used to cold and wet conditions. As we began the climb back up, we ran into a handful of people making the trek down to see the falls, also smiling from ear to ear at the awesome beauty in front of us. What a fabulous way to spend Christmas!
We ended the day with a short driving tour of a few overlooks, and as Wes stopped to help some people take a group photo, we couldn’t agree more with their sentiment of what a fantastic Christmas day it had been. I think Grammy and Granddad would have both enjoyed a day like that day…natural beauty and inspired happiness on a very special day of the year. Rest in Peace my Grandparents. One day we will hike together again.
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