Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Ramsey Cascades

After starting with a thee-mile stretch of the legs to Grotto Falls and back on my first day in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I decided to raise the bar with a more demanding hike on Day 2. The Ramsey Cascades Trail is 8.1 miles round-trip and gains more than 2,200 feet of elevation, with the tallest waterfall in the park for a payoff. I'd done hikes that gained more than 3,000 feet over the same distance in Colorado and Alaska, so I figured this would be a cinch.

Not so much.

The vegetation along the trail is again incredibly dense and lush.  You know what it takes for that?  Moisture.  Lots of moisture.  Half a mile in, I was already drenched with sweat.

One spot along the Ramsey Prong had several little cairns set up, and I don't know why other than for decoration.  They weren't needed to mark the trail.

Even small cascades like this one can look stunning.  I wish I had a little action figure I could have staged in the shot somewhere to give the illusion of scale, but another problem I had on the hike was that I was carrying far too much weight -- two cameras, a tripod, and a backpack full of just-in-case accessories.

Where there is moisture, there is fungus.  Psathyrella piluliformis in this case, if iNaturalist is to be believed.

The good news after an unexpected struggle was that the juice was worth the squeeze.  The falls are gorgeous.

I love getting the lacy effect of flowing water, but with these falls I also enjoyed zooming in on small portions and freezing the action.

After overcast skies when I arrived, the sun came out and gave the falls enough of a different look for me to want to shoot them again.

And another freeze of the action was also in order.

I gave myself a nice 30-minute rest at the falls before heading back downhill.  On the return journey I focused more on sights like the ubiquitous Great Rhododendrons.

You know what else likes moist conditions?  Moss.  You know what didn't care for the humidity?  Me.  Even on the downhill trek I was constantly mopping my brow.

There were a pair of creek crossings over these log-and-one-railing bridges, which weren't as precarious as it might appear.

I could probably put together a coffee table book of nothing but Great Rhododenrons after just two days in the park.

MapMyWalk says I covered 8.32 miles in just under five hours (not counting the rest break at the falls), burning a solid 932 calories in the process.  With hikes of comparable length planned over each of the next two days, I knew I was going to have to re-think some things to give myself a slightly easier time!