On Black Friday, the day when most people head out early in the morning to fight the crowds at the malls & major retail outlets, Brent and I got up early and headed to the trailhead at Newfound Gap. It was cold and we were bundled up in coats, hats & gloves. We planned to follow the Appalachian Trail out to Charlie’s Bunion, about 8 miles round-trip.
While we knew that the Smokies got a good bit of snow from Superstorm Sandy, we didn’t expect that there would be any leftover for our trip…but there was!! It was actually quite icy in places, but there was also plenty of looser snow for the occasional snowball.
At the top of the mountain, the trail narrows and you feel like you are walking on the “spine” of the mountain. It is so quite and serene up here!
And then we were there! Charlie’s Bunion is like a rocky outcropping from the mountain. On the internet, I read that it is a fairly popular hike and it is difficult to get good pictures due to the crowds who climb out on the rocks for a picnic. We were very lucky – the only ones out there this morning!
The hike back was not too bad….the last bit of the hike is downhill, so going back is uphill, which I really hate. But the uphill part was over quickly and it was pretty cool out. It was nowhere near as steep as the Alum Cave trail up to LeConte.
After we got back up to the parking lot, we headed to the Anderson household for some more Thanksgiving celebration. We drove home through Townsend and stopped at a cute little country store for some fried apple pies and a grocery store for some vanilla ice cream. We TOTALLY missed the crowds and avoided Black Friday retail chaos!
