Veteran's Day on the Cumberland Trail

Being a federal employee, I had Veteran's Day off. To celebrate, we decided to go for a great fall hike. We chose a portion of the Cumberland Trail - from Indian Rockhouse to Snooper's Rock in the Prentiss Cooper National Wildlife Management Area - mainly because it was supposed to have great overlooks of the Tennessee River Canyon. The fall leaves were at their peak in the canyon (as we saw during our Riverboat cruise) so we wanted to make sure to get some great views.

Here's a picture of the family at the beginning of the trail (taken by our friend Chris who accompanied us). Rosco doesn't like to hang back during a hike, he tends to blaze the trail for us.As you can see, Sam is big enough and has enough head control to face forward in the Baby Bjorn now. She loves it because she can see everything and her favorite thing to do right now is just stare at everything around her and take it all in. Here's a picture of Sam all bundled up for the hike (yes, those are socks on her hands, they work much better than gloves!):

Along the trail, there were awesome rock formations. Here's a good example of one:

And, as expected, the leaves were beautiful! I think we were actually a few days past the peak time though because tons of the leaves were on the ground rather than on the trees. Here's a picture of some leaves on the ground that shows off the great color:

Much of the trail was back in the woods but we got great views towards the end of our hike.

This is the view from the end of the portion of the trail that we hiked - at Snooper's Rock.

And here's one final picture of the family (minus Rosco - he was off blazing the trail) standing on Snooper's Rock at the end of our hike. Sam was turned around because she was taking a nap.