Unexpected Adventures

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the only free national park in the country, and is primarily divided between the Tennessee and North Carolina border. It gets its name from the thick blue clouds that form when the warm humid air from the Gulf of Mexico cool in the mountains. It is a cheap but fun place to have your spring break if don't prefer the beach. The Smoky Mountains are a perfect blend of southern culture and nature.
This past March I made my second return to the Smokies with my University’s Outdoor’s Club. Although it was raining the entire week we were there, the Smokemont campground had plenty of mud-free spots, one of which we found with a wide creek being our backyard. When you travel to the Smokies in March, the weather is unpredictable, meaning it could spontaneously go from snow to sunshine in the course of an hour. This makes planning activities for the club tricky. The one hike we really wanted to do was Charlie’s Bunion (named after a bunion a guy’s foot that looked like the cliff), which we did the previous year. But since the rain kept turning to hail every time we tired to hike it, we kept having to put it off.
So for the majority of the week, we walked easy trails to waterfalls and explored the nearby towns. In Bryson City, there are family run coffee shops and sandwich cafes with unique recipes you could never get at an Olive Garden. The sweet tea is exactly how you’d imagine it would taste coming from the south. The wildlife is plentiful, from the graceful three-rack elk to the lone male black scavenging the woods for food.
On our last day, we decided no matter the weather we were hiking Charlie’s Bunion. And thankfully for us, it was only slightly cloudy that day. You see, this hike is considered by most people as the most worthwhile view in all of the park. This is because, after four miles hiking up the mountain, then down, and finally back up again, you reach a lookout that, once the clouds clear, overlooks a deep valley and beyond the rest of the mountain chain heading north. You literally feel like the king of the world when you stand on this rock. As for the unusual naming of the trail, if you think on it, it’s actually rather fitting. If you want to get somewhere worthwhile, you most certainly will have to deal with a lot of pain from the hike on the way. You’ll hit bumps and get bunions and scars, but the prize is worth it at the end.