Meigs Creek Cascade

In the fall of 2018 I had the opportunity to take a business trip to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  Since it was so close to home (just over a five hour drive) I elected to take my family along.  They had fun around the hotel (we were staying at Dollywood's DreamMore Resort since that is where the conference was located) and at nearby Dollywood.

After the conclusion of the conference we headed into the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park to camp for a few days.  While my wife prefers hotels on vacation I love spending time in nature and can't get enough of camping.

While in the park we decided to take a couple waterfall hikes, figuring that the kids would enjoy getting to see something fun at the end of the hike in the form of a spectacular waterfall.  The first trail we chose was to see Upper Meigs Falls.

From the parking area you walk a short distance to see a cascade at the Sinks--this is actually a man-made feature due to dynamiting of a massive log jam that created a huge hole in the rock that altered the watercourse from where it previously used to pass around this area.

While we were there we saw a kayaker make their way through the rapids.

I enjoy using the long exposure feature of Live Photos on my iPhone for waterfall photos.

After looking at the cascade for a bit we made our way to the trail head.

The portion we were going to take would be 1.8 miles to the waterfall.  I used my Google Maps app in offline mode to track our progress on the hike, and when I'm going back right now to remember what it is like the walking directions on Google Maps feature provides great information.

You start out going up a number of stone steps, it was the first of many changes in elevation along the trail which rises almost 500 feet in elevation from the parking lot to the falls.

We also had to cross some water well before the waterfall, one reason I'm always glad I wear boots.

There was so much green in the woods.  I stopped to take pictures of interesting features several times.

For the most part the kids did fine on the hike, but every now and then (especially on uphill portions) they would complain.

I thought the colors of this leaf were striking, especially against the green background.

We saw some amazing mushroom formations along the path.

I couldn't resist taking quite a few fungi photos.

I find the shapes and colors so fascinating.

These ones were quite pale, almost bleached in color.

These ones look like bits of bark.

I think this looks like a close-up shot of a pine cone.

These ones look almost like shells.

Okay, and one last fungi photo just because I can't resist.

The path kept going up as we progressed, through really the rise wasn't too difficult.  We had made sure to pick a hike where it was uphill going in so that it would be easier for the kids on the path back to the car.

I think the leaves of ferns look so beautiful.

This was one of several spots where we had to cross the creek.  I picked up each of the kids in turn and ferried them over since their legs weren't big enough to go from stone to stone across the watercourse.

As we got closer to the end of the portion of the trail that we were following the nature of the trail changed and the trees closed in.

Another of the water crossings that were fun to navigate with a kid on my back or in my arms.  Seriously it wasn't bad, and the worst that would have happened if I'd missteped would have been wet feet, the water wasn't at all deep.

The only animal we spotted on the hike was this salamander.

We all had to climb over this tree in the trail.

Finally we could spot the falls we'd come so far to see.

A bit closer and the sight was even more impressive.  While certainly not huge the falls were beautiful to see, especially after a long hike.

It was hard to get a photo of both sides of the falls as there weren't many great vantage points.  I did manage to get a good photo of the left side.

And then another one of the bigger cascade on the right.

Again the timelapse feature makes for spectacular waterfall photos.

After some snacks and a rest we headed back towards the trail head and our vehicle.  And of course we had to go over the same parts of the creek that we'd come over on the way out.

While there were occasional trees to climb over at least it was downhill.

It ended up being a bit later than we'd thought we would be, but we got out well before sunset and had time to stop at the campground store on our way back to our campsite.

At the very end we walked back up the stone steps to the parking lot.

All in all I was impressed that the kids did as well as they did on a 3+ mile hike.  It was definitely a fun experience that we'll be sure to repeat someday when we're back in the area.  You can see a few more photos from the experience in this album.

~Matt