The drive up to the trail was rather long, almost two and a half hours, going in the western entrance to the park. Not spectacular, but not terrible.
Seems that it was a pretty stressful day in BSF - at the visitor's center, the park ranger was somewhat rude and short with us. It turns out that the rescue squad was out on the trailhead we were aiming for. They were searching for a special needs man who had wandered away from his group. As far as we know, he still hadn't been found by the time we left, although the squad at the trailhead had disappeared. This was pretty much the low point of the entire day.
The hike itself was fairly low-key. The trees hadn't quite turned as much as I had hoped, but it was still nice to look at, and relatively peaceful.
The trail stays pretty level for the first 2 miles or so, and then begins to ascend pretty rapidly. There's almost 500ft of elevation gain in the last .8 miles of trail, which made for some somewhat more strenuous journeying. The GPS data confirms my story, I swear. The first 2 miles also parallel the Cumberland River for the most part. The water level seemed to be pretty low, and not too spectacular. I would not recommend this trail if you're out looking for relaxing water sounds; there just weren't that many.
As I wrote, the climb up the last .8 miles or so was pretty steep. It also involved one ladder that had fallen or been removed, a couple of passages across half-washed out trail on the side of the gorge, and travel across some rock ledges with ropes tied into the side of the mountain. Pretty cool stuff, actually. It was a welcome change to the fairly routine path from the first part of the tail. Also along this part of the trail were a couple of areas that were more shaded and damper than the rest - they gave a really welcome cool breeze at just the right times.
The overlook itself provided a picturesque view of what I assume what a good portion of the BSF. You could see the River going off in both directions, and plenty of just-starting-to-turn fall foliage. A word of warning, however: there are a lot of hornets at the Overlook! Along with some other yellowjackets (or ground bees, I didn't get close enough to ask them which they were) caused a bit of consternation. No disasters, however.
Lunch was eaten on the way back down, in a nice little rock shelter with plenty of resident spiders and other creepy crawlies. I swear one spider web (far away from me!) was probably a good 3 feet in diameter. Crazy stuff.The rest of the descent was pretty standard. Feet hurt, toes squished, etc. Sometimes I think hiking down the mountain is a lot harder than hiking up!
Actually saw a pretty good number of critters today. The Angel Falls Overlook critter count:
- 2 fence lizards
- 1 young skink (with a blue tail)
- 1 unidentified lizard
- 1 giant praying mantis!
- 1 chipmunk (this little guy was extremely fast!)
- various birds, including a really cool vulture on the way in, posing on a dead tree for us
- 1 unidentified bug larva under a rock in the river
Overall a pretty successful hike, although I wish there had been more foliage, and fewer other hikers. However, I suspect that it's hard to avoid other hikers at this time of the year unless you're willing to get out before dawn. Which I am not.
Anyway, photos will dribble out over the next week or two. I still need to post photos from my recent trips to the UT Arboretum and Ijams, then I can the rest of these done.
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