falling water

At Les Jones’ suggestion, Better Half, some friends, and I spent some time out at Burgess Falls and the Black Mountain Loop Trail.
We stopped off at the latter first, and traipsed around the top of an oversize hill… Half of the loop is part of the Cumberland Trail system (as denoted by the picture yesterday), and the other half… well… it could definitely do with some serious bushwhacking. The brambles were taking over the world. As for views, the north and south overlooks are indeed impressive, though if sheer rock faces dropping off a few hundred feet are not your thing, you might want to stay away from the edges – there are no railings or ropes or anything. Also, while we were out there, I managed to dig up my first geocache, purely by chance… I just happened to see it tucked away in the burned-out stump of a tree. At any rate, it was one of the geocaches left by MikeMTN, and can be found at N 35° 58.253′ W 085° 09.419′ (assuming you have a hand-held GPS widget, which I do not).
The Burgess Falls park is definitely a nice place to hang out for a bit, what with a butterfly garden, a fishing pier, and a really large turtle patrolling the lake. As for the path down to the falls, that is definitely something you should not undertake if you are even slightly acrophobic (like, say, me). Up until the last falls, the path was not that bad, though it had its moments… However, that path drops you off at the very top of the Burgess Falls, where you can go as close to the edge as you want. Then, you get to climb down a set of metal stairs that run right next to the Falls, hanging over the drop from the top of the falls to the bottom – a pretty substantial one at that. I was able to handle the stairs going down and up, but it is not likely to be something I will do again.
Anywise, without further ado, the pictures from Black Mountain:











And Burgess Falls:




















Should have brought a tripod with me for the extended-exposure shots, but they still came out relatively decently.