Tiny Treasures on Laurel Falls Trail

I'm already three posts behind!  I still have 2 posts from Kentucky that I'll probably save until after I get home.  This morning I dragged Mom out of the house and made her go for a hike to Laurel Falls.  It looked quite different from when Wayne and I hiked it last fall.

My mother is not a hiker, but even she got ahead of me in no time once my eyes fell on all the tiny treasures hidden on the side of the trail.

Woolly Blue Violet maybe?

All of the flowers were so tiny that you could have picked every one in these images and they would still have probably fit in the palm of my hand.

Dwarf Cinquefoil

On both of my hikes so far I've see an amazing variety of violets. I always thought a violet was a violet, but look closely and you'll see some differences in petal and leaf shapes.  There are more than 30 varieties in the Smokies!

Smooth Yellow Violet

Northern White Violet

Bird's Foot Violet

I kept expecting to see my mom waiting impatiently around every bend, but I never did catch up to her.  She was on a mission to keep going without stopping.

Trailing Arbutus?

Galax flower yet to bloom

I even found what looked like teensy carnivorous plants peeping up above the leaf litter.  (A few days later I realized they were new Galax leaves sprouting.)

I was only minutes from the falls when Mom came back down looking for me complaining that she was waiting for at least 15 minutes for me!  I laughed and told her that was nothing to complain about when hiking with a photographer.  Nearby hikers got a good laugh at that one.

We even got to hear a horror story from a park volunteer who used to live in Wisconsin about someone who wouldn't listen when they told them not to climb on the rocks around the falls and their kid fell and split his head open.  

Smooth Solomon's Seal

Just what I needed, right?  My mother worries enough when I'm out hiking.  The volunteer also had a lot of great things to say, and helped me identify this bird when we first met on the trail.

Rufous Sided Towhee

It's a wonder my brain doesn't explode with all the information I get on these trips.  Anyone who knows what this moth/skipper?  below is or any of the unidentified flowers above are please feel free to comment below.

And, of course, there were a few dogwood trees to admire along the way against the sunny blue sky on our way back down.

Mom's cousin Annmarie didn't make it yesterday, but made her way here today instead.  My dawdling on the trail meant she actually got to the rental house before we did.   Due to limited cell service we didn't know until we were only minutes from home.  We didn't miss her by much and she was able to turn around and get back up the hill to the house by the time I had the salads laid out on our plates for lunch.

And all that was before noon!  I did some more solo hiking after lunch while the ladies spent a small fortune at the Christmas store in Pigeon Forge.  Annmarie took my request literally and brought back a dozen enormous Gigi's cupcakes....maybe I'll fit into my hiking pants tomorrow, we'll have to wait and see.