While the last trick or treaters were getting rained on in town, up on the mountain it had turned into snow. Yup, snow on the last day of October. We still have fall leaves on the trees!
Actually it was very pretty. Here’s what I saw:
This is where the little car with the Texas plate decided to turn around.
Whigg Meadow is is on the Tennessee North Carolina line accessed by the mud gap trail, Benton MacKaye trail or a long winding forest road.
Some people were there seriously picking berries but I just ate all the berries I picked.
Catching a sunrise up on Max Patch is totally worth getting up for!
Please excuse the wicked sigma lens flare of my “beater lens”. I don’t think all newer sigma lenses have this kind of crazy flare, I think it’s just that this old lens has been through a lot.
I shot these next 8 photos intending to stitch them together as a panorama but I didn’t get to it, so use your imagination here ok?
There were only two other hearty souls up at the top for the sunrise.
Others may have thought about getting up for the sunrise but ended up just pulling the covers back over their heads and mumbling something about looking at the photos later.
No problem, I got them for ya!
Stone Door is this big chunk of rock that kinda got separated from the rest of the rock and now is this sort of crack in the rock that you can climb down through. Why don’t I just show you the pictures? It’ll be easier than me trying to explain it.
I think it’s located in Grundy county TN. It’s up on the Cumberland Plateau and you have to drive up and up and up to get there.
The trail starts out paved
and is almost wide enough to drive on.
A third of the way in it changes to dirt/sand, still a well maintained trail.
Then you’re walking along and can tell you’re almost to the view
and there’s a crack in the rock and it’s separated right about where I’m standing! Except there’s this piece of rock I’m on that’s bridging across.
I went out on the edge to try to see but I didn’t want to get too close because it was waaaay down there.
From the bottom looking up.
part way back up.
looking straight up.
almost back up.
Then, it just so happened that the bathrooms weren’t working at the main parking lot. So we had to use
the out houses in one of the camping areas. There weren’t that many spiders and it didn’t stink too badly.
The ranger said it’s super busy in the fall, the park, not the out house, so summer is a great time to visit.
The Meadow creek fire tower looks a lot different than the last time I was there you can see the old tower here
The tower is somewhere outside of Newport TN.
Just when you’re not sure if you’re even on the right windy dirt forest road there’s a sign!
From the parking lot a path
that spirals to the top.
And this it now what to tower looks like! Kind of boring actually.
Though the stairs are much safer than the ones I climbed a couple of years ago.
The views are just a spectacular.
In all directions. I think this is overlooking Green and Cocke counties.
It’s a pretty nice place to watch a sunset from.
And to watch the stars come out.
