Slowly going insane: Chimney Rock

After our fun weekend in Bristol, we drove southeast through the Cherokee National Forest area of the Great Smoky Mountains towards Asheville, North Carolina. The two hour drive across the mountain ridges was spectacular.

From Asheville we headed towards Greenville, South Carolina. We stopped at Chimney Rock, North Carolina to take advantage of one last opportunity to enjoy the beautiful mountains.

The photo below (taken from the state park website) shows Chimney Rock State Park. The promotional materials for the park stated that, "it offers hiking trails for all skill levels, spectacular views, the Devil's Head balancing rock and a 404-foot waterfall, Hickory Nut Falls. The park's most notable feature is a 315-foot rock formation, a granite monolith, Chimney Rock, accessible by elevator and providing views of the park and surrounding countryside."

After gaining nearly 2,000 feet in elevation as we drove up the mountainside, we parked our car and took the elevator to the peak of the rock. The elevator ride traveled 26 stories inside of the rock. Displays inside the elevator showed us how it took engineers almost two years to blast the rock from the inside cavity in order to build the elevator shaft.

Then we climbed a few flights of stairs to reach the summit.

The views from the top were amazing. Even though the Great Smoky Mountains are not as majestic in terms of elevation compared to the mountain ranges in the western U.S., these mountains impose a great amount of beauty in a different way.

We visited on a beautiful day with clear skies, but still the haziness of the Smoky Mountains lived up to its name.

We redeemed our laziness of taking the elevator up by taking the stairs down and then going on a hike to the waterfall. Surprisingly, it was Amelia's idea to take the stairs down.

The trail to the waterfall was 1.5 miles round-trip, with a decent amount of elevation gained and lost along the way. The kids did great with the walk to the waterfall, never once complaining that they were tired or wanted to stop. They must have been using pent-up energy from so many hours in the car!

Hickory Nut Falls was pretty, and so much different than the falls we are used to seeing out west in the Grand Tetons. In comparison, this was barely a trickle of water, nothing like the roaring falls that occur in Wyoming from all of the snowfall.