Abrams Falls Hike Report

Oh, my adoring fans, how loyal you are. Reading every post, looking at every picture, committing every precious word I blog to your unfathomable memories. I guess you deserve more!

I didn't get up and out of here nearly as early as I wanted. I think I left around 08:30 and got to the trailhead by 10:15. Not too terrible, but not great. I was pretty pleased on the way in. It was until maybe two-tenths of a mile from the falls that I saw anyone going the same way as me. I like it that way, much less chance of being annoyed by others for long periods of time.

Now, for some pre-falls photos!

A nifty fungus:

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

And another:

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

The majestic beetle:

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

The acrobatic snail:

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

There's wildlife here, can you spot it?

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

Better look at previous wildlife:

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

Spotted wintergreen (goes in root beer!):

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

I will take this opportunity to note that I only used the kit lens today, although I did bring my 50-200mm telephoto with me. Switching lenses is such a pain.

I also did the GPS trick again, so all photos have location info in them.

Tree snot:

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

My favorite photo from the trip, I think. This is a different lizard who wanted to play hide-and-seek. Dang thing kept running to the other side of the tree when I got close.

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

Now, two photos of the falls. One is a very short (1/250th of a second) and the other is pretty long (1/4th of a second).

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

Scads of tadpoles in little pools of water among the rocks:

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

Closeup of the top of the falls:

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

Obligatory bad photo of yours truly:

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

Artsy fungus. I'm being artsy, not the fungus.

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

LUNCH!

From Abrams Falls - 2010-06-17

Lunch was had extremely late, like around 15:45. It was at Cheddar's in Maryville. I would not recommend them as a burger place. It was an OK burger, but they insist on overcooking them, and it just wasn't too flavorful. The fries, however, were pretty tasty.

Critter count:

• Bears - 2
• Deers - 4
• Lizards - 3
• Funguseses - lots
• Tadpoles - a gajillion
• Itty bitty frogs - 3
• Bimbo hostesses who liked my "Take the sh out of IT" shirt without a clue what it means - 1
• Spiders - not nearly as many as normal, I suspect because this trail is very heavily traveled

The ride home was... pretty rotten. I had the GPS tracking that as well, and I made it roughly 6 miles in 30 minutes. So lame.

Final thoughts:

• Go early. Traffic will stink whenever you go, but the earlier the better.
• The hike out seems a lot worse than the walk in, in terms of elevation. Could just have been the increased heat though.
• Be prepared for more people as the day goes on.
  

Check out the album for a ton more photos. If I get adventurous, I'll stitch together a panorama of the falls later.

Oh, and here are the pretty graphs from the GPS.