Six kickass things I did at work today
- Hiked one of the park's most popular trails
- Saw a pretty waterfall
- Watched deer frolicking in front of Park Headquarters
- Looked for salamanders under tree cookies
- Drove up to Newfound Gap (the second highest point in the park) and overlooked both Tennessee and North Carolina
- Stood where FDR stood when he dedicated the park in 1940
A few years ago, Amy and I decided to go hike Wallace Falls. A short hike with great views, it promised to be a pleasant drive and an easy "break-in" hike to start out the season. This hike turned out to be a little more popular than we bargained for. People who wear street clothes and swing grocery bags full of food by their sides is one thing – people who smoke while hiking is a whole nother thing. Laurel Falls is kind of like that hike, but in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Paved, accessible, and under 3-miles round trip, I had been warned that Laurel Falls was something of a dilletante hiker's Mecca, so I was advised to try to knock it out before the season started to pick up and things really started to get crowded on my off hours. Fortunately I have this really cool internship that you may have heard about, so I just went on the clock today under the guise of completing my first assigned task: take care of "Flat Stanley."
Flat Stanley is a project where kids in classrooms all around the country send some flimsy paper doll to national parks as a kind of ambassador on behalf of the student. The parks then send back brochures, maps, and other promotional materials – in this case, pictures of "Flat Jessica" and "Flat Intergallactic Space Traveler" on a hike in the park. Needless to say, I looked really awesome taking pictures with a paper doll while people with strollers left me in their dust.
Pictured below:
- A tree cookie
- Checking for salamanders
- Look at me, I'm FDR!
- A terrible picture of frolicking deer in front of park headquarters
