2019 Tarn's Great Smoky Mountains National Park Trip: Sunday, November 10, 2019

Today’s goal was to travel to Gatlinburg area to hike on Rainbow Falls Trail and drive through the Fork Motor Natural Trail. First, we have to drive to Gatlinburg. After we got into town, we realized that this is a much popular town for people to stay when they visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It has more shops and restaurants for tourists. However, we did not want to spend too much time in town, we just passed it and went on to the Fork Motor Natural Trail and the trail head of Rainbow Falls Trail. The parking spots were full in the parking lot, so we had to drove further down the road for about half a mile to find a spot. Rainbows trail is 5.4 miles round trip with 1685 ft elevation gain and it’s difficulty rating is 8.77. It is on the Tennessee side, therefore, the fall foliage is much prettier. The roaring sounds of the creek accompany the footpath for most of the first 2.6 miles, and hikers have to pass a couple of spots with rocks as paths to cross the creek.

At Rainbow Falls' trail head

Nice stone stair on the trail

Fall foliage along the trail

Hugh rocks along the tail

Stone bridge along the trail

At the end of the trail, hikers are rewarded with a stunningly view of the highest single-drop waterfall (nearly 80 feet) in this national park. There is a warning sign of “Do not climb on rocks around the waterfall”. However, many youngsters still did it.