Cove Mountain - Laurel Falls

Date: 1/2/16
Distance: 13

This hike is a very nice shuttle hike that is close to Gatlinburg.   It was nice to hike with Russ and Bill on this day.  I met Russ at the Laurel Falls trail about 8:45 where we left a car before driving over to the Sugarlands Visitor Center to meet Bill.   We got ready to hike rather leisurely hitting the trail about 9:15.

We started by leaving on the sidewalk behind the visitor center and then taking the Nature Trail over to Cataract falls.  The nature trail added about 0.5 miles to the hike.  We could have driven around and parked closer to the trailhead, but it was an easy walk over.

Cataract had a decent amount of water on this day.

 Cove Mtn is 8.5 miles up to the Cove Mtn fire tower.  The trail is wide and smooth and easy to hike, but it climbs about 3000', so it is a workout.  There are a few places with some views.

 The trail goes by several houses and Ober Gatlinburg as it makes its way up the mountain.  We made good time up to the tower covering the 9 miles from the visitors center to the tower in only 3 hours.  The tower is used by TVA and the Park Service to monitor pollution and weather, so it isn't accessible to hikers, so there are no views at the tower.

From the tower, we backtracked 0.1 miles to the Laurel Falls trail.  We hiked it for 0.9 miles to the Little Greenbrier intersection where we stopped for some lunch.

From there it was only 3.1 miles to the car.  The Falls was about 1/2 way down the trail.  It was packed with people to the point that it was kind of miserable.

We didn't stay long at all before heading down the paved trail to the car.  I don't know why they paved it.  The pavement is pretty rough.  It would have been much better to just "pave" it with small gravel or something like that.

There are a couple of nice view locations on the walk.

 We passed about 100 "hikers" over the last 1.2 miles to the car.  In hindsight, I wish we had hiked the other way as the crowded part would have been in the morning when fewer tourists were clogging the trail.  The climb would have also been shorter.