Great Smoky Mountains: Water

One of our favorite things in nature is to find a body of water whether it is a creek, a river, a waterfall or a lake. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that our favorite day on our vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains was a day by the Oconaluftee River. But we also hiked up to see a beautiful waterfall, took a train ride by the Nantahal Gorge and river and enjoyed a few creeks too. I was so glad to have packed everyone watershoes even if mine didn’t make it past the second day as they were quite old and literaly fell apart..

Mingo Falls

Mingo falls are located in Cherokee NC and is a 200 ft waterfall. It is very easy to access: there is a short (compared to others) stairway followed by a path to reach the waterfall (less than 10 min I would say). There is a bridge at the base of it and it is also fairly easy to walk the the actual base of the large fall too.

My son took some really cool pictures of the mini waterfalls on the other side of the bridge. There were some spots to wade it safely with kids.

Just looking at the water makes me feel refreshed! I really love listening to and looking at water.

River Fun

The river (Ocanaluftee) is very shallow in Cherokee so it was perfect for the boys to skip rocks and wade in. They also enjoyed admiring how smooth the rocks were and the variety in color. We ate by the water a few times.

A local man told my husband about a spot where you could body surf some “smaller” rapids and where there was a pool of water to play and swim in. We went twice and spent most of our last day there. The boys enjoyed walking on the rocks and watching people tubing down the river. There were a couple spots where you could get thrown off your tube and my husband did try going down the rapids a few times. It was definitely a local hangout in the afternoon but not crowded at all. We spent 5 hours there without anyone and later a couple families came. You could tell the kids knew what to do!

Beauty in Water

We took the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad down the Nantahala gorge. The scenery was really pretty and passing by this man made lake was beautiful. We sat in an open air car so we were able to enjoy a breeze. I loved watching the water!

I mentioned in Friday’s post how sometimes it is good to let go of plans and go with the flow. We discovered this really beautiful spot after missing the parking spot in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for 2 quieter trails that I wanted to  walk on. We ended up at this bridge (below) and walked a trail that had us looking around for bears after reading the signs. The above log bridge was such a fun and pleasant surprise. We all took our picture on it! What a fun bridge!

Just something as simple as pebbles and rocks in clear water is beautiful! I really recommend a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains if you are not too far away. Cherokee is definitely an interesting town to visit and there are many beautiful spots to enjoy nature within a short drive.

A bientôt!

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