Friday, June 8, 2012

Hikin' in the RAIN

On May 22nd,   George and I went hiking in the Smokies.   We went on a 4.3 mile hike to Huskey Branch Falls ---near the Elkmont Campground.   I have teased you with a couple of posts from that day.   If you missed the last post,  click HERE to see it.

Today,  I will show you another set of photos from that RAINY day.... We got about a third of the way up the mountain  when the skies opened up...  Luckily,  we did have our nifty rain jackets on --which helped keep 'part' of us dry --including our cameras.   BUT--the bottom half of us got VERY wet ---and muddy!!!!!

However,  we never let a little rain stop us from hiking...  (Sometimes,  it seems as if rain follows us around when we are hiking!!!! ha)   We kept on walking --and even though we were EXTREMELY wet,  we enjoyed our day...  As you can imagine,  I turn into a little child when I can splash around in the mud puddles!!!!!!

WELL---here are more of our photos.  Above is a picture of the gorgeous Little River as the rain began to come down hard.... It was hard pulling the cameras out of our jackets and clicking a picture quickly --so that the camera could go back into the jacket...




Thought you might want to see a picture of our path that day... This is a great hike since we do go up in elevation --but it's gradual!!!!!!   The path follows the Little River --as we hike up the mountain.




George took this picture of me on the path...  I'm glad this was not a 'cold' rain...  AND--we did have a little protection under the trees along the way.




Here's another of my "Swirling Water" photos... I really love seeing the water pour down that mountain in all sorts of directions...   The farther one hikes up that mountain,  the larger the boulders in the river are... SO GORGEOUS---even in the rain!!!!




I love this picture of George.  He's still smiling even though he looks like a drowned rat!!!!  He wanted to take pictures ---but as long as it was raining hard,  he kept his camera hidden.

Thanks to a good blog friend,  we now know that camera sleeves can be ordered to keep a camera dry in this kind of weather.    We have already checked them out ---and I'm sure they will be ordered soon!!!!!!




I must share one more of George's 'silky' water photos ---which he was able to take before the rain got heavy.




We finally made it to Huskey Branch Falls---and the rain quit for a few minutes for us to take some photos... In fact,  George was able to climb up to the side of the falls to get this great picture of the top which cannot be seen from the trail.  Isn't this a beautiful waterfall in the mountains--even on a RAINY day???




Here is a picture I took of the waterfall as it traveled on down the mountain.  I took this picture from the path, whereas George took the one above near the top of this part...  Like I said,  Huskey Branch Falls is a beautiful little waterfall.




Finally,  since the rain had stopped (temporarily) ---we were able to get some pictures of us at Huskey Branch Falls  with our tripod....   You can see how wet our jackets are---but they did keep us fairly dry---on TOP!!!!!

I have one (maybe two) more sets of pictures to share from this hike---but hope you enjoyed seeing a couple of crazy OLD people ---out playing in the rain!!!!   Can you hear us singing:  "Singin' (Hikin') in the Rain" ??????   OR---"Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head..."  SO MUCH FUN!

The hardest part of the entire trip was going home in the car with wet pants and wet shoes and socks...  We had to have the heater on in the car --in order to keep from chilling.. It felt so good to get home and take off those wet clothes!!!!

Have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you on Monday.
Hugs,
Betsy