 |
 |
[Home] [Trail History] [Trail Map] [Selected Log Excerpts] [Photos] [People] [Order the Book] [Links] [E-Mail Ed Wright]
Cove Mountain hike-Mike Howitz 10/09/08
On October 9th I started out on my hike-the weather cool and good visibility. I walked from Fairfield Inn in Gatlinburg and walked thru town to the Gatlinburg Trail to Sugarlands Visitor Center. From there I found out there was a shuttle that would take me the 3.6 miles to Laurel Falls trailhead for 50 cents.
I have hiked
this trail half a dozen times but this was the first time I continued on.
After the falls the trail ascends moderately for half a mile and then levels
off. There are no spectacular views on this trail but there are some
huge trees-oaks and poplar mostly. This trail meets up with Little
Greenbrier Trail at 3.1 miles.
I went on to Cove Mountain which is.9
miles. along the way I saw a black bear about 30 feet off the
trail. I just kept walking and keeping it in sight the whole time until
I lost sight of him. Believe it or not he doing # 2 the whole time I
walked by-you know how the old saying goes. That is the third bear in 2
years I have seen on the trail and I have been hiking here for twenty years.
I reached Cove Mountain shortly after
seeing the bear and visited the fire tower-you can no longer climb it due to
some air quality equipment mounted half way up. I did see a lot of wears
valley from a clearing just below the tower. From this point I had 8 miles of
Cove Mountain Trail between me and the ranger station. The trail was very wide
for the first few miles and there are dirt roads
that parallels it-one is the vehicle access for the equipment on the tower and
others are on private property-this trail is on the park boundary.
After 3 or 4 miles I got glimpses of
Clingmans Dome and the Appalachian Trail ridges just west of it-also Mt LeConte.
For the next few miles I hiked past a ski resort and several houses and I
could hear music which I found out later was a band playing atop Ober
Gatlinburg. I only saw one other person on the entire hike which is one
good thing about hiking certain trails-turns out he has
hike almost every trail in the park and has a cool website-(Your
Smokies News.com). At the end of the trail there was a small
waterfall that was barely dripping.
I ended up hiking the trail back into
town and I think my total distance hiked was about 17 miles