On a recommendation from a friend, we went up to Middle Prong Trail in Tremont, with an eventual destination of Indian Flats Falls.
Middle Prong Trail is one of the nicer trails I've been on. It's on an old railroad bed, so it's wide enough in lots of places for 4 people abreast. Almost the entire trail follows the Lynn Camp Prong of the Little River. It's very scenic and peaceful, with tons of little cascades the entire way. Supposedly it's one of the lesser-known trails in the Smokies, but we saw quite a few people on the way back down. Definitely a hike to start off relatively early in the morning; 09:30 seemed like a pretty good time to arrive.
There were only a few downsides to the hike. The trail is pretty rocky, and I wonder how that happened, since it looked rather antithetical to getting a good railroad track laid. My theory is that the soil used to be 4 or 5 inches higher, and much of it has been washed away by downpours. The other hazard of this trail was a preponderance of horse apples! Have to watch out for those things.
So anyway, it was a very pleasant hike up to the falls. It's a pretty steady and easy climb (around 250ft per mi) of about 3-3.5 mi up to the falls. The falls aren't actually on the formal trail, they're off on a little manway that is (currently) marked by a small stone pile. There's a quick hike along a little cliff face that is only partially washed out, and then it's a plunge through a wild little rhododendron grove.
We came out between the first and second falls (there are 4!). Made an excellent place to stop for lunch, and thankfully the other group there had just left. Always better to sit and eat without worrying about strangers. A bit chilly, but definitely better than the raging heat wave we've had for the past few months.
So, here's the other bad part of the hike. Locating the trails/paths down to the other falls was a complete failure. Nothing was apparent, although some other references indicate it should have been easy to find paths through the rhododendrons. That was disappointing, but does at least give a good reason to head up there again at some point. It is definitely a worthwhile hike - not terribly challenging, but really beautiful and a good overall workout.
We didn't actually make it to the very end of the Middle prong trail, which was another half mile hike - we thought maybe we could find a way to the bottom falls from below and chose to poke around down there instead of trekking up trail. I had some fun rock-hopping around down there, so I think it was the right decision.
Here's the GPS Track. Total hike was really around 8mi, as opposed to what is shown. You'll notice that it took quite awhile (~.5mi) for the GPS to get a lock, because I forgot to turn it on until we'd already started walking.
Photos will follow later as I try to get caught up with posting.
Critter count:
- Birds - surprisingly few, although we came very close to a big loon on the drive up
- Bears - zilch
- Bugs - again, not a lot, although there was a pretty big beetle!
- Snakes - 1! Finally, a snake, and not just a simple garter snake. I got some photos, but haven't tried to identify it yet
- Squirrels - Just 1
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