Spruce Flats Falls || 10-1-08

Time table for today: Leave school at 3:45. Get home at 4:30. To Tremont by 5:30, to Spruce Flats Falls by 6:30, car by 7, Mr. Gatti's by 7:45, home by 8:30. Less than 5 hours, and a regular ol' Wednesday night was transformed into family memories.
The evening started well enough; everything was packed and ready by the time I got home, so we pretty much laced up our boots and headed out. The trail is an "unmaintained trail" as far as the park service is concerned, so it's not in the Little Brown Hiking Bible or anything, but it does run right behind the dormitories at Tremont, so it gets high traffic as part of the Tremont programs. [to get there, park at the Tremont visitor's center, walk up the gravel path to the right hand side of the parking lot (facing away from the visitor's center), walk up the path to the dorms, and take the trail to the left of the dorms (Lumber Ridge Trail). On Lumber Ridge, go up about 100 feet and turn right on to the Buckeye Trail It will take you to the falls.]
The trail is a lot of little, steep ups and downs over rocks and roots, but we all made it without anyone falling (a feat, considering Bailey's gracelessness). Along the trail there are several landmarks to watch for... in order of appearance... a series of Buckeye trees, a larrrrrge water tank, the Idiot Tree (the tree where idiots all carve their names), Butt Scoot Rock, and finally the falls. At the falls, we had just enough time to sit around and snack at the falls for a minute, test out the Gore-texness of my new boots, and make a little river rock face paint. On the way back , shortly after the Idiot Tree, Jodie heard and then spied a bear, a juvenile, about 100 feet off the trail sitting stone still. We were a big enough group and making enough noise that neither us nor the bear were really startled. No one freaked out, either, until about 10 yards down the trail when Myers realized that, on my back, there was nothing between him and the bear, so Jodie and I had to swap places on the trail.
After getting back, in honor of no one complaining and everyone having fun, we decided to negate all of the calories we burned by going to Mr. Gattis. :)