Great Smoky Mountain Hike - Abrams Falls

Recently we were on vacation visiting my in-laws in Tennessee.  One day my husband and I went on a hike to Abrams Falls in Cades Cove.  Every time we hike at home he laments the lack of shade on the trails.  Now I understand why!  This trail was shaded nearly the entire length.  It was fairly challenging but the lower altitude (1,710 ft at it's highest versus the upwards of 10,000 ft we normally end up hiking) made up for the challenge.  The elevation gain was only about 350 ft but you did those feet in a couple fairly steep runs.

The falls themselves were wonderful and unfortunately the picture does not do them justice.  They are only about 20 ft in height but the volume of water is impressive.  At the base of the falls is a nice pool of water that my husband says gets very busy later in the day with swimmers.  As we were coming down the trail back to our car we saw quite a few folks going up with their swimming gear.

I'm really glad we did the hike early in the day like we did.  The combination of heat and humidity sapped me!  I did not plan well and ran out of water with about a mile still to go.  I was definitely glad another bottle of water was waiting when we got back to the car!  We saw lots of deer and even a couple bears.  Unfortunately my deer pictures did not turn out very well and the bear were way too far away for my iPhone to capture them.

It was a good workout and I definitely recommend this hike if you find yourself in the Smokies.  It took us about 3 hours and that included spending about 20 minutes at the falls.  I would also recommend some hiking poles if you have knee issues like I do.  It was very helpful to be able to take some pressure off those old knees on those elevation gain/loss areas.  I would also recommend you spend some time exploring the rest of this wonderful area.  The history here is amazing!  Check this out for further reading on Cades Cove:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cades_Cove

Here are some choice pics from the hike:

Beautiful drive into the cove

And this friends is why they are called the Smokies!

We did the 2.5 mile hike to the left - so sad that dogs aren't allowed :-(

Beautiful foot bridge at the beginning of the hike - I better not get used to this sort of luxury!

Stream under the footbridge - very serene

 

This is what most of the trail looked like - you did have to be careful though
because there were rocks and trees roots everywhere

Lovely trees!!

And here is where I wished there were more luxurious foot bridges
like the one in the beginning - I'm a serious scaredy cat on these things!!

Unfortunately the falls have proven deadly to swimmers who tried to
swim too close and were sucked under by the current

 

Unfortunately I forgot my Garmin so I had to rely
on my iPhone Health App for this information

Updates

I'm doing really well with C25K! I did week 3 day 1 on Saturday and I nearly cried when I heard the voice say that we were going to run 3 minutes without stopping!!  I had my little dog Peanut with me and I just said out loud to him that we WERE going to do this.  I checked my Garmin to see what my elapsed time was so far so I could keep myself motivated.  I waited until I was really tired to look at it again and when I saw I only had a minute left of the run I knew I could do it.  Then when the 2nd 3 minute run came up I knew I could do it because I'd done it already!

On Monday the hubby and I went for a 5k hike on a local trail.  We hiked up 1.6 miles with an elevation gain of 315 feet and then hiked back down again.  I felt like I was incredibly slow on this hike but really my pace wasn't all that much slower than when I'm doing C25K.  My knees get upset when I go uphill.  I'm hoping as I take off more weight that they will not punish me so much.

When I woke up this morning I felt like I had been hit by a truck.  I'm thinking it was the combination of the hike yesterday and the fact that I had two slices of whole wheat bread for lunch before our hike.  I'm really starting to think that gluten attacks my joints in a horrible way.  I wasn't sure I would be able to run today but I pushed through and did it!  It definitely wasn't my fastest run but I made it through the whole program including the two 3 minute runs!!  It was a challenge on the track today because the middle school track team was doing sprints at the same time.  Peanut did pretty good and wasn't too distracted by all the kids which really surprised me.  I put aside my self consciousness and did my workout.  I just kept telling myself that what those kids thought of me did not matter.  I was quite proud of myself for getting out there and I wasn't going to let anything take that away from me!

Eating has been going really well except for the bread thing on Monday.  I tried a new recipe last night that wasn't a home run but it was edible.  It was Garlic Lover's Stew from Kalyn's Kitchen.  Usually her recipes end up as keepers but this one was too salty and too garlicky for our tastes.  I rescued the stew meat from the concoction and threw out all the rest.  I'm going to use the stew meat in a curry of some type later this week.  Here's a link to the recipe if you want to try it - like I said it wasn't bad but it just wasn't suited to our taste preference:  http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2008/02/crockpot-beef-stew-recipe-with-olives.html

Tomorrow is Curves and dance class and then the last day of week 3 is on Thursday.  Saturday I move to week 4 and I've heard it's a push to get through it.  I'll just keep telling myself I can do it and put forth all the effort I have.  That's the only thing I can do unless Fiona the Fitness Fairy visits by then and magically makes me a world class runner!  I think maybe I'll have better luck keeping up my positive self talk.