3 Apr 2021
Today would be a day of long hikes and long drives. Cloudland Canyon State Park was just up the road from our hotel.
I gave Matt the choice between two hikes: the West Rim Loop Trail (yellow)- a popular, almost 5 mile hike, with gorgeous views of the canyon, or the Waterfalls Trail (brown)- a short 2 mile trail off the West Rim Loop with lots of stairs but gorgeous views of 2 waterfalls.
Matt said we should just do them both. I was in! Seven mile hike, here we come!
The trail started off nice, but getting down to the waterfalls required stairs…
…skirting along the cliff:
Another balancing rock that you probably shouldn’t walk under:
and even more stairs…
This bridge leads to Sitton’s Gulch Trail, which descends deeper into the canyon:
Our planned hike was already pretty long, so we didn’t check this one out, but it looked like it would be pretty as well. This is us on the bridge, looking back towards Hemlock Falls:
And this is Hemlock Falls!
Spray from the waterfall covered the viewing platform and since it was still chilly out, turned to ice. Matt may have slipped.
Us, at Hemlock Falls!
Hiking back up most of the stairs and heading left takes you to Cherokee Falls!
Us, at Cherokee Falls!
The river heading away from the falls:
Cool rock formations:
Back up from the Waterfalls Trail, continuing along the West Rim Loop:
This trail was marked with yellow tags (I appreciated the Dwight sticker someone put on this one):
Us! On a bridge!
I fit!
Matt was skeptical of crossing this little brook, but there was a clearly marked tree just across the way:
Hello Matt!
Found this cool outcropping of rocks:
It seemed like a good place to eat lunch:
and enjoy the gorgeous views:
Continuing on the trail:
Matt, enjoying the finest 5G this mountain has to offer 🙂
Down there is the town we stayed at last night!
There were a whole series of lookouts along this second half of the hike
Matt, testing out the camera capabilities of his new phone:
We stopped for one more lunch break and soaked in this awesome view:
We made it!
Back at the parking lot, I found and took another, shorter trail (only 0.5 miles!) heading to yet another overlook. It was a paved, easy trail, but honestly, the views from our hike were much better.
We had a 2.5 hour drive to our next hotel, the Holiday Inn Express. When I booked the room, there was a place for comments, so I made a note that it would be my birthday (tomorrow). Cyera, the woman who checked us in, later came up to our room with a birthday surprise!
Pretty much made my night!
We also DoorDashed birthday crepes (for me) and bacon & eggs (for Matt!) from the IHOP that was just across the highway from our hotel. Lazy, yes, but so tasty!
