Hike #2 : March 29, 2013
Rainbow Falls to LeConte and down Bull Head
13.0 miles
13.0 new miles
31.6 total overall miles
30.3 total miles of 800.8
March 29th, 2013.
Eddie Wright, Mike Clark and myself finally begin our journey to LeConte. Great day for hiking. A bit overcast and a slight chance of rain. We start our hike at the Rainbow Falls Trailhead. It's a steady climb from the start. I've heard this is a very rocky trail but the snow has smoothed things out nicely for us. By the time we reach Rainbow Falls at about 3 miles in, we're starving and stop for a bite and to admire the falls. Lots of ice. Time to put on the cleats!
From hear the trail is a continuous and unrelenting climb mile after mile. The last couple of miles up to LeConte proved to be the most difficult I can recall ever having hiked. I honestly wasn't sure I was going to make it. By this point there's around a foot of snow on the ground and its really starting to snow pretty hard. I can't even recall how many times I thought to myself how big a mistake this is. At about 5 feet from the summit I pause trying to gain my breath and not die. Poor impatient Eddie kept saying "It's right there! Let's go! It's right there! You can see it!" Lord help me how I wanted to kill that man. Mike was silent but no doubt sharing in my desire to do bodily harm. But we made it. Stumbled into one of the buildings, shed ourselves of our gear, sat down and died. Then we bought t-shirts.
We made our way over to the lodge for a incredibly flavorsome cup or two of hot chocolate. Possibly the best ever. I think Mike and Eddie had coffee. By now the snow is intense. Unfortunately we were running a little short on time and headed out to get to hiking down via the Bull Head Trail.
Along the way down the snow tapered off into a light to moderate rain and the trail went from packed snow to mud rather quickly. At least we're on a steady downhill path now. Then it happened. Dagnabbit! Blowout! Mike's shoe totally blew out. Oh, fuuuuu... dge. Only he didn't say fudge. You get it. Anyway, he had to put his cleats back on along with some duct tape if I recall correctly and continue on. We were soaked by the time we made it back but all in all, one of the best hikes ever.
TRAIL REVIEW
Rainbow Falls Trail - 6.7 miles
Bullhead Trail - 5.9 miles
Old Sugarlands Trail - .4 mile
1 shelter (LeConte)
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