Laurel Falls

Date: 12/6/2014
Distance: 8.2
New Map Miles: 4.0
Total Map Miles: 676.6

I woke up today to a steady rain, but it didn't diminish my desire to get out in the woods.  I decided what good is it to have good rain gear if you don't use it!  I headed out about 7:45.  I drove through a very heavy rain, but by the time I reached Townsend, the rain stopped.

The 1st 1.2 miles of Laurel Falls is a paved trail that is normally packed with tourists, but today the rain scared them off.  I did start out with a couple, but quickly lost site of them.

 It isn't often that you can enjoy solitude at Laurel Falls.

At the falls, the paving ends and the hiking begins.  The trail has a steady rise for the next 1.8 miles where the Little Greenbrier trail intersects.  From that point it is only 0.9 miles up to Cove Mountain.  At Cove Mountain, I turned left to go out to the tower, before turning around to head back to the car.

About 1 mile down the trial, the rain started again.  I put all of the rain gear on and continued on to the car in the hard/steady rain.  Even with the rain, it was a great little walk up the mountain.  I think I prefered a little rain to a big group of tourists on the trail.  I did pass about 10 hikers headed up to the falls on the way out.