April 22  DAY 9

CHARLOTTE'S 11TH BIRTHDAY!!!

Today we drove to Newfound Gap and beyond.  We hiked for 3 miles on the Kephart Trail which had lots of "footlog" bridges and gorgeous wild flowers.  I'll do a separate post of that hike so that I can identify the flowers (we bought a wildflower book) and you can see the crazy footlog bridges.  Following our hike we drove to Clingmans Dome (6643 ft), the last 1/2 was a hike that gained 600 ft in elevation to a spiral walkway and viewing area.  

Special note to Davy and Jay--We were able to park in the lot and did not have to climb the spiral in a single file line.  There just weren't as many people in the park at this time of year.

We saw some elk crossing the road along the way which provided some good photo ops all of which are pictured below probably in no logical order.  Enjoy.

View from the Newfound Gap

another view from the gap

one view from Dome

ELK

Getting ready to cross the highway




Views from Clingmans Dome with a bit of the spiral walkway.  Every time I tried to put a caption on several photos they disappeared so some are without captions.  (I try)

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