Day 15 - Great Smoky Mountains Railroad

Saturday, May 21, 2022

Weather - Mostly cloudy, high of 86F

Steps - Shaun: 9,951; Shannon: 9,373

Varmints - our first Great Blue Heron sighting! Couple soaring birds we couldn't identify.

The first half of our day was spent traveling into the Nantahala River Gorge aboard the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. We arrived at the depot an hour early, as instructed, and then piddled around in the gift shop and at a coffee shop nearby. Finally it was time to board the train, and we were right at the front! Shaun had gone all out on the reservations: we were in a first-class car with air conditioning (maybe a little too much air conditioning, to be honest), a whole booth and table to ourselves, a bartender just for our car, lunch service, and complimentary drink tumblers and tote bags. 

The train took us past Fontana Lake, across a couple of trestle bridges, and along three different rivers over the course of 22 miles. We learned a little bit about the history of the area, but mostly we just enjoyed the beautiful scenery. 

Class V rapids!

After a couple of hours, the train reversed direction, and we started back toward Bryson City, stopping for an hour at the Nantahala Outdoor Center, which hosts all kinds of excursions, including whitewater rafting, ziplining, and wilderness survival classes. In fact, while traveling along the river, we saw quite a few rafting groups and whitewater kayakers. Most of the rapids were class II and III, but we saw a class V there as well. 

Can you find the heron in this picture?

We ended up using our layover to walk along the river, viewing the class V rapid and a little waterfall near there, and ending at a marshy area where the river met up with Fontana Lake. That's where we saw the Great Blue Heron. The only pictures we managed to get were a bit Where's Waldo?-esque, so see if you can spot him.

This was an old Appalachian man who came on the train with us
and told us stories of the area.

Isn't he something? 

We had a few more minutes before we had to get back on the train (they were very emphatic about us returning to the train in time or they would leave without us), so we walked over a bridge and watched some kayakers train on how to go down rapids safely. This one guy kept going over the same section that would flip him over and then he would have to flip himself back up. It was pretty incredible. We never did make it to the main building at the outdoor center, that had a shop and area information, but that's okay. We saw a blue heron.

Back on the train, a conductor came by and shared some stories about Fontana Lake, the history of the railroad, etc., and we had a dessert of cheesecake. Otherwise, we just read our books and occasionally looked up to check out the passing scenery. 

We arrived back at the depot around 3:30, with two clear goals in mind: frybread and strawberries. Yesterday we were told that a frybread vendor was going to be behind an antique mall we visited as part of their customer appreciation day, and Shaun was all over that. We were introduced to frybread while in the Navajo Nation on our Southwest trip, and Shaun became obsessed. We went directly there, and the vendors made the bread right there in front of us! We got plain and cinnamon-sugar, and they were delicious.

Obviously, their corn is much higher than knee high by the 4th of July!

From there, we went back to our hotel to drop stuff off, eat the frybread, and cool off a bit before heading out to complete our next goal: strawberries. The same person who told us about the frybread vendor also told us about the Strawberry Jam at Darnell Farm this weekend. We arrived to find a bunch of craft vendors, live music, and an enormous farmstand chock-full of fruity delights. Shannon bought a necklace and some earrings from a boutique in a vintage camper, and we got some goodies from the farmstand, including fresh strawberries, peaches, and the biggest cups of fresh-squeezed lemonade you've ever seen in your life.

The hotel was only 4 minutes away, so we went back to drop off our purchases before driving to Cherokee to take the short hike up to Mingo Falls. These falls are actually within the Qualla Boundary rather than in the national park, and following our GPS took us to the wrong place. We turned onto the road we were told to by the Google Lady, and there were signs saying "Mingo Falls is not here. Your GPS is wrong." Upon turning around, we found another sign with an arrow pointing us further down the road to get to the falls. More signs took us to the trailhead. The trail is short, .3 miles total, but the first little bit consists of 160 steps (we counted). Then it was very rocky until we arrived at the most spectacular falls we've viewed yet on this trip. 

Mingo Falls is 120 feet high, one of the tallest waterfalls in the southern Appalachians, and it's super cool because not only does it have the main waterfall, but it also has hundreds of little branches traveling down a moss-covered wall, leaping across fissures in the rock, and sparkling in the sun like icicles. The true waterfall extends across the entire rock face, with part of it just broken up by the moss. Then the water rushes through an obstacle course of broken angular rocks and fallen trees, past a bridge that we were standing on, and continues on down the hill. It's a sight to behold, and well worth the steps to get there.

Well pleased with our day, we decided to end it there and go back to the hotel. We ate a dinner of leftover stir fry and watched movies on TV until bedtime. Tomorrow we're finally heading back to Clingmans Dome!