On May 14, 1988 Karen and I got married at Siple's Garden Seat Inn restaurant overlooking Clearwater Harbor--this restaurant's building now serves as a part of Morton Plant Meese Hospital. Our honeymoon included a night at the Omni in Atlanta, two nights at a Norman Bates type hotel at Lookout Mountain, Georgia, and a few nights at a mountain chalet called "Dogwood Country" at a mountain resort known as Cobbly Knob located about ten miles north of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Little did we know that Cobbly Knob would continue to factor into our future.

	The beginning of the Chimney Tops Trail at the Sugarland Mountains range located in the Tennessee portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Fall Clouds Over the Great Smokies
In November 1994, not long after my sister's death, Karen and I spent the first week of a vacation that would become an almost annual event. Once FSU Seminoles football began to wind down, our long time friends John and Beth Blechschmidt would spend a week vacationing at a chalet in the Cobbly Knob resort known as "The Carousel". The first evening we got there was incredible as two storm systems met directly overhead. Hurricane gale winds howled between the adjacent mountains and hollows, uprooting and literally hurtling trees down nearby slopes. John and I, who were watching the event from the falsely secured location of an outdoor deck, watched in slack-jawed amazement. Right then I knew I would fall in love with this place.

	Halfway up the Chimney Tops Trail affords this beautiful glimpse of Mt. LeConte.

The Lure of the Mountains
Although I am and always will be a Floridian at heart, the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States are an incredibly rugged with beautiful sights that have their own special enchantment. Spanning from southern Maine to northeast Georgia, these are amongst the oldest mountain ranges in the world. Part of Florida's land mass, as well as a large part of its flora and fauna, owe their beginnings to this incredible mountain chain. Unlike the Rockies in the western United States, the Appalachians are carpeted in thick and diverse vegetation, due in large part to precipitation totaling over 100 inches a year. Outside of the coastal areas of northern California, Oregon and Washington, the southern Appalachians comprise one of the few temperate rain forests in the world.

	Breathtaking view from the summit of the Chimney Tops, looking westward towards Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

Go Take a Hike
The game plan for our vacations is pretty simple--Karen and Beth do a lot of shopping in Gatlinburg, while John and I hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This fall it would be the Chimey Tops Trail, named after rock formations that jut out of the top of the Sugarland Mountains. The Chimney Tops Trail is a 2 mile, almost vertical trek that rises 1,700 feet above its entry point at Newfound Gap Road (U.S. Highway 441), the only roadway that crosses the entire Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In degree of difficulty, the Chimney Tops rail is a 9 out of 10. It is a steep, rugged, and potentially dangerous trail, and Tuesday December 3, 2002 would be no exception. Right after John and I crossed the second bridge over the Little Pigeon River, the majority of trail was iced over. Undaunted, if not exhausted, John and I soldiered on, determined to make it to the summit of the Chimney Tops.

Fellow hiker John Blechschmidt at the summit of the Chimney Tops.

Sometimes It's Better the Second Time Around
When John and I hiked the Chimney Tops for the first time in December 1996, it was about 17 degrees at the summit with 50 mile per hour winds. Winds that were so powerful, they were tossing around the roots of Frasier Firs that were tenaciously clinging on for dear life to the pure rock that is Chimney Tops. Needless to say, John and I were in turn clinging on for dear life to those same roots as one step in the wrong direction meant taking a 300 foot elevator drop to the first floor. On our way back down the Trail, we were caught in a blizzard, and would end up being the last people allowed to leave the Park on that incredible Winter Wonderland Day.

This year was different. It was a beautiful sunny day in the lower forties and upper thirties. This time (after some encouragement from John) we got to actually see the breathtaking view from the summit of the Chimney Tops, which was captured on digital and shown in this article. This mountain trek would comprise the first part of our Tennessee trip. Our second part of the trip, which will be covered next week, would bring nighttime snow flurries, also captured on film, just in time to put you in the right mood for our for our Christmas NCPCR!

A frozen solid Chimney Tops Trail.		The Little Pigeon River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.