What a beautiful day for a hike! Temperature in the high 70s, blue sky, light breeze. We took advantage of the wonderful day by going for a hike southwest of Asheville at the DuPont State Forest. Today was our last day to pick up the new family tent we had ordered from REI. We had it delivered to the store in Asheville to save money. We picked up said tent, ate lunch at the nearby, delicious Neo Burrito, and then headed past a raging house fire (I sincerely hope everyone made it out safely) to DuPont.
The parking lot was packed upon our arrival. We were obviously not the only ones out looking to take advantage of the wonderful weather. We got Sierra in her backpack and then hit the trail.
Our first stop was just a short walk down the trail at Hooker Falls. We got a good view from the side of the falls
and then descended to the base.
We spent just a few minutes admiring the falls (it looks kinda like a really small Cumberland Falls) before retracing our steps to start the next leg of our journey.
We then crossed a relatively new footbridge across the Little River and followed the trail
(really a gravel road) to our next destination: Triple Falls.
Wow! I was really impressed with Triple Falls. I had seen photos on the internet, but they just don't really give you a sense of the scale of these falls. We checked them out from an overlook and then headed further up the trail to check out High Falls.
High Falls, like Triple, was very impressive. We first walked to the base of the falls and then hiked up to a higher viewpoint. We hiked past the viewpoint to a covered bridge, which was our turnaround point for the hike.
On our way back to the car we took a side trip down to Triple Falls. A set of wooden stairs led down to the base of the middle of the three falls. We rested there while Sierra ate an apple and splashed in the water for a bit.
Then we headed back to the car for a quick stop at the Dairy Bar and the drive back to Greeneville. The drive home was a bit more interesting than usual, as we got stuck behind a driver in a Mini who had very unsafely lashed some building materials to her car.
They looked like they could have fallen off at any moment and the wind was doing its best to pry the materials off. We survived though!
LOVE the falls. Some of my fondest memories are camping and hiking with my little girl. At the young age of 4 she could hike for miles right along with her dad and I without complaining. She loved the outdoors, hiking and camping as much as we did. Now that she is 13 the idea of hiking and camping with mom and dad is akin to a form of torture.
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