Little River and Cucumber Gap trail

We started the day with a great breakfast at Hillbilly's restaurant in Wear's Valley. Great meals (I had

Bananas foster French toast), and giant cups of coffee. As soon as you open the door to the restaurant and step inside, you're faced with an old Chevy truck. Great atmosphere here, great food, and friendly staff. One thing we have noticed is that Covid precautions seem to be non-existent here. No one wears masks inside, as far as we can tell. But Covid has definitely hit this area hard. Gatlinburg, Sevierville, and Pigeon Forge and surrounding communities rely on the success of their service businesses for tourists, especially restaurants. It seems that every restaurant is seating at 50% capacity, not for protection's sake, but because they can't get people to work in the restaurants--servers, bus people, etc. We assume that unemployment benefits are more of a draw than the paychecks. Every restaurant we've gone to has notices to exactly that effect, and is posting big "WE'RE HIRING" signs, and we've been told of the problem by restaurant people.

Our first stop today was a loop trail reputed to have great wildflower stands. The first 2 miles followed along the edge of the Little River, a small river that sounded really loud as we hiked along. There were, in fact, nice displays of wildflowers along the edges of the trail. But after our experience at the Sink yesterday, most anything else was bound to pale in comparison. Today was warmer, but started with a nice breeze that made for a pleasant walk. Not long after the trail turned away from the river, we
started in to a 3.7 mile ankle-buster hike, with rocks and roots spread across the path. Soon we came to a place on the trail where we had to cross a fast-running creek. After assessing our limited options for crossing it, we chose to crawl on hands and knees across a makeshift bridge of fallen logs. After that, there were a couple of other creek crossings, but that was the most interesting. Great hike.

We had read that a smaller trail in another part of the park had great wildflowers as well. We headed there, and took that one.

Again, memories of the Sink colored our appreciation for the natural displays of flowers there. But it WAS pretty. 

Photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/psNnEsX2DtsQasZx7