May 2011 – mrfs.net – the little trips pages

After a rough day of judging BBQ over in Sevierville, Tennessee we stopped at a couple easy waterfalls on the way back home. Mingo Falls is located just outside the NC side of the Great Smoky Mountains NP on the Cherokee Reservation. On the way you’ll pass the fantastic new school complex Cherokee has built.

It’s a bit of a stretch to call it a trail to Mingo Falls. It’s basically a long staircase and then a very short walk to the cove in which the falls is located. It could be strenuous if you’re as pregnant as Melanie is in the above picture though. The falls is quite impressive.

Just south of Soco Gap on the Blue Ridge Parkway is Soco falls. This is also is barely classified as a hike. It’s a pull out on the east side of the road and a couple switchbacks down to some viewing platforms. Soco Falls is actually two separate falls at right angles at a confluence. This is the larger and easier to photograph.

Trail Days 2011

Trail Days happens every year in mid-May in the small A.T. town of Damascus, Virginia. We’d never managed to make it here hiking-wise before so we decided to stop by in a year that will involve very limited hiking (due to Melanie’s pregnancy).

It’s actually a much bigger festival than we expected. The entire town is taken up with impromptu tent-colonies of current and former AT hikers. There are vendors all over the town park of the sort you’d expect for a crowd of long distance hikers.

Big South Fork NRA

We’d been meaning to visit Big South Fork for some time. As we were on the way back home from the Kentucky Derby, it seemed like a good time to stop by. Melanie was 7 months pregnant on this trip so all of these hikes are in the easy category and none of them are more than about a half-mile roundtrip.
There are many natural arches in Daniel Boone Forest in southern Kentucky. This is one of them located in the aptly named ‘Natural Arch Scenic Area’.

Yahoo Falls is the highest waterfall in Kentucky, just edging out the much more impressive Cumberland Falls. Yes, it looks like a 4 year old took this picture but it’s the best we could do. If you want a more panoramic photo, I’d suggest visiting in winter. Incidentally, if you stop by the Stearns Ranger District headquarters, you can pick up a packet of recommended hikes. This is by far the best packet of day hikes we have ever found at any national forest / park in the US (or elsewhere for that matter). It actually includes topo maps for each of the hikes.

The centerpiece of Big South Fork is the canyon of the Big South Fork. This photo is taken from the almost completely unsigned Blue Heron overlook (above the remnants of the Blue Heron mining colony). Signage is hard to come by in Big South Fork so we’d recommend getting a decent map. (Tragically the packet from Daniel Boone NF doesn’t include BSF hikes).