Christmas 2000

The day after Christmas, 2000 we drove up to Newfound Gap and day-hiked out to Charlie's Bunion and back. There was snow on the ground halfway up the mountain. The trail had between six inches and one foot of snow on it, but it was fairly well packed down. Half way to Icewater Spring Shelter, it began to snow and continued for the rest of the day. When we arrived at Icewater around 1 PM we found four folks there planning to spend the night. We fixed some hot chocolate and ate a snack before hiking on to the Bunion.

After taking some pictures at Charlies Bunion, we began hiking back to Newfound Gap. The snow was beautiful. A very large Barred owl flew up off the trail in front of us and landed in a tree not more than 50 feet further down the trail. We slowly walked up to the base of the tree while the owl watched us over. He was apparently trying to decide if we were the next meal or not. I snapped a few pictures and five minutes later he flew away through the falling snow.

The wind began to kick up around 3:30 PM, and although the temperature was in the hign twenties, it didn't feel very cold. We reached the car shortly after 5 PM, and fixed some more hot chocolate to warm up. Cars were stopped and backed up going down the mountain toward Cherokee because of ice on the highway. We turned around and headed back through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge to Interstate 40. A long way home, but a good trip non-the-less.