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Just like white-water rafting, horseback riding has become a staple of our recent summer trips. After checking out of our hotel in Pigeon Forge, we headed to Townsend, TN on the northern edge of Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Davy Crockett Riding Stables. Ashley rode Jewel-Eye, Amber rode Sunny, Alyssa rode Fancy, Karen rode Buster, and I rode Gypsy (although two-thirds of the way through the guide had Karen and me switch horses because Gypsy was getting tired).

The trails took us up and down hills, through dense woods, and along small hidden hay fields nestled in secluded clearings amidst the trees. Karen had a little trouble keeping Buster from wanting to snack on everything we passed. She’s just too nice to the horses and doesn’t discourage them from munching on things when they get the chance.

At one point early in our ride we circled back by the barn to pick up a halter for the horse that a little girl in our larger group was riding (it was even munchier than Buster) and all of the horses thought “We’re done!” and wanted to go back into the barn. It took a little convincing to get them to move again.

The girls enjoyed the chance to go a bit faster than we had on any of our previous trips as all of the horses seemed to take turns trotting down one of the hills that we went down.

After horseback riding (and lunch) it was time to drive to the cabin on Lake Douglas which was to be our base of operations for the next several days. The road to the cabin was even narrower and twistier than the roads we’d been on so far, but we finally arrived at our destination. The cabin was nice, but the water level in the lake had gone down about 6 feet in the previous several weeks and the dock we’d made sure was floating when we’d rented the cabin was now firmly on the ground and at a precarious 30 degree angle making it basically unusable for much of anything. As we were tired from horseback riding, hiking the day before, and moving our stuff into the cabin, we decided to take it easy and mostly relaxed the first evening. We did try fishing for a little while near dusk but the only bites we got were of the mosquito variety. We ended up playing some board games and some foosball and calling it a night.

Day 4 of our trip was devoted solely to visiting Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

We started the day by taking a hike to Laurel Falls. The trail was 1.3 miles each way. For fun, I wore the GoPro camera strapped on my head and set to take a picture every minute. The falls weren’t all that spectacular somewhat of a disappointment after the long uphill hike. To make matters worse, with people (stupidly) climbing all over, around, and in the falls it was difficult to get a decent picture without some stranger in the frame.

Our next stop was Newfound Gap to take some pictures of the mountain views and take a hike on the Appalachian Trail. Ok, it wasn’t really a hike, but we did go down it a ways so that we could take some pictures and claim that we had “hiked the Appalachian Trail”.

From there it was about a 7 mile drive to Clingmans Dome, the highest point in the park. Well, actually, that drive got us to within about a half mile of the peak (on which sits an observation tower). The weather in the parking lot was great and offered some nice views of the Great Smoky Mountains and we took a bunch of pictures before heading up the half mile paved path to the summit.

By the time we got to the top a cloud had pretty much settled in right at the observation post completely obscuring the view to the north. We stayed there for about 30 minutes waiting for the ceiling to lift, but it never did. Since we didn’t get a chance to be awed by the view from the top, I’m not sure if I’d ever attempt that hike again as the trail was pretty steep and I was pretty worn out by the time we got to the top.

A few years ago while on a cruise we had gone on a “canopy tour” on St. Maarten. It had been a mix of rope bridges, tightropes, ziplines, and other ropes course type activities. Since everyone (eventually) had fun doing that, Karen and I thought going ziplining in the Smokies would be a fun thing to do. Before the trip we had done some research and had decided to give CLIMB Works Zip Line Canopy Tours a visit.

Unlike St. Maarten, this time we would almost exclusively ziplines and our guide (instead of us) would be responsible for making sure we were clipped in at all times because we’d be much higher in the air! After getting geared up at the office, we headed up the mountain in an ATV, chasing a dog named Bear all the way up. Every time we’d fall behind, he would stop, turn around, bark at us, and take off running again.

Once at the top, we walked into the trees via a swinging bridge and would spend the next couple of hours in the trees. For being somewhat afraid of heights, you’d think I would have been terrified, but our guides were very safety conscious and our harnesses were always clipped to something.

At each zipline, our guide Brian would go down ahead of the group to act as the coach/cable-tugger/catcher. He’d give signals to tell you to “cannonball” if you were going too slow or “starfish” if you were going too fast. He’d also pull down or push up on the cable to speed you up or slow you down. And finally, if you were still going too fast when you got to the landing platform would attempt to stop you before you hit anything more solid. Back above, our other guide Christina would hook each person in turn onto the cable, check with Brian via radio and then send the person on their way.

For the first half dozen ziplines, I wore the GoPro camera mounted on my helmet and Ashley wore it for the last three, including the one where we were allowed to do “tricks” on (she went upside down and then did a twist at the end).

The surprise at the end was a guide controlled 30′ free rapel from the out of the trees back down to the ground. This was actually the only time my fear of heights surfaced.

There’s something different about hanging from a thin rope being held by a 100 lbs girl than being clipped onto a steel cable strung securely between two large trees. I got to go before the rest of the family and they couldn’t see where I was landing, so when I reached the decking below I stomped loudly on the wooden planks and yelled “Ow!” to make them think that I had been dropped. I think I had them going for a few minutes!

While a bit on the pricey side, we had a great time and it was definitely worth it! We ended up driving past several other ziplining places throughout our trip and decided that CLIMB Works looked much better than any of the others so we were pretty happy with the choice we had made.

We ended the day with a drive into Great Smoky Mountains National Park. A quick stop at the visitor’s center steered us in the direction of Cades Cove, an isolated valley within the park that had a one-way loop road around it. The road was rumored to be one of the best places to see bears and other wildlife. On our first time around the loop we (and a whole lot of other people) saw a small mother bear and her cub near the road.

She eventually had enough of all of the attention and took her cub up a hill and across the road and away into the tall grass.

On the rest of the way around the loop we saw lots of deer (including one that leapt across the road right in front of us) and turkeys. Since it was still light out when we finished the first loop, we figured we’d go again to see if we could spot any more (or the same) bear. While we didn’t see any bears, we did see several large bucks in the woods.