Thursday, September 16, 2010

Clingman's Dome


At 6,643 feet, Clingman's Dome is the highest peak in the Smoky Mountains. Naturally, we wanted to see this record-breaking site. However, we didn't consider how it would be walking up to the top (it's only a .05 mile hike from where you park your car, but it's all UPHILL and that can be a lot if you have a kid that wants to be carried.).


On the drive up I was able to snap some pretty, scenic pictures, and a kind woman offered to take a picture of the whole family as well.




Like I said before, we parked near the top and then walked the rest of the half mile to the top. We finally saw some barren pines, so unlike the rest of the Smokies rich vegetation.







It took a lot of encouragement to get Jared to walk to the top (I don't even think we had to carry Alexa at all), unless there was something to climb. Jared's always up for climbing.


There's a small lookout tower at the very top, which we climbed up to, but it was so cloudy that the scenery really didn't look any different than what we had seen climbing up.




Wouldn't you know it, but as we were halfway down to the car, the sun started to peek out.



It was pretty tiring for all of us, but I guess we can now say we made it to the top. I love this picture of Jared asleep on the way home. He couldn't even spare the effort to pry the juice box from his lips!


2 comments:

denise said...

Wow - that is quite the hike! And with wee ones. Love that family shot - so cute. :)

We love to hike and go often, and have some hills in some areas, but the only way we can make it without my husband having to carry asthma-boy is if we go pretty slow and take breaks, which is hard when the 7 year old wants to sprint the entire way. 8-O

Chris said...

It's hard when one is more clingy for whatever reason and the other child wants to go, go, go.