Arden, Reace, and I decided to take a day trip to the Smoky Mountains. During this short trip, we hiked ~6 miles on Alum Cave Trail, got Sonic slushies, and stopped at a fudge store that Arden and Reace like. It was a short trip but very memorable!

The car ride from UTK’s campus was roughly an hour 30 mins. I tried doing some homework and instantly regretted it when we got to a windy roads; my head began to hurt. We soon arrived at the Smoky Mountain welcome center to purchase a day parking pass. The parking pass is relatively new to the national park and I support it because it used to be completely free to enter/park and the park is now generating more revenue! Anyways we proceeded to our hiking destination using the parkway and soon arrived to Alum Trailhead. It was quite busy so we had to park half a mile down the road and walk to the trailhead.

Strava Link: https://www.strava.com/activities/11184062112

The trail started off fairly easy following a beautiful rocky creek almost the entire way up. The trail was rocky and we crossed many wooden bridges and some interesting wooden log crossings. Soon we came to the what I believe the hike was named after cave passage. I will let the photos and pictures speak for themselves!

I’m experimenting with a new way to show videos since I would have to upgrade my WordPress plan from Starter to Explorer. I’m not doing this because it’s too much money. So look at my youtube post below for the sick video!

At the top of the hike we were doing I had myself some pepperoni, saltines, and proteins bar to fuel my descent. Surprisingly the pepperonis were a hit with Arden and Reace. We then descended quickly and before we knew it we made it back to the car. Also, hiking in Sambas hurts my toes but I fought the pain.

On the way home we got Sonic slushies and fudge. I got Ocean water slush and monkey butter fudge.

Overall a great spontaneous trip! I’m glad we did this because I don’t normally do stuff like this unless planned ahead of time and I would love to do it again!