Throughout the year this year I’ve been thinking / commenting that I need to “expand my circle”, specifically meaning the area where I take pictures.  We live in such a beautiful area, it is really easy to keep going back to the same places over and over again.  You’ve seen some of the fruit of that already this year in several of the waterfall images I’ve shared that have come from different parts of the state.  Well I started asking friends about Big South Fork – the other giant park in east Tennessee – and one by one they all said, “You have to do the Honey Creek Loop Trail!”, followed by “Oh, and do it counter clockwise”.  After hearing such a unanimous accord, I added it to my ‘must do’ list, and Holly and I finally made time for it this fall.

In the lead up to our hike, I did a fair amount of research on the trail after seeing multiple people say it was easy to get lost on this trail because it wasn’t well marked.  In this research I read that the Honey Creek Loop Trail is the hardest / most challenging trail in the state of Tennessee, the prettiest trail in the state, the most diverse trail in the state, and on and on the superlatives go.  Clearly this trail strikes a chord with people.  Well now that I’ve hiked it, I can’t say I agree with all of the assessments made about the trail (I’d rate it a solid moderate, not difficult), but it was most certainly a spectacular and visually diverse trail!  It is also fair to say that all the breaks we took so that I could take pictures may have made it seem not so challenging!  In any case, since this was a new area for me, I wanted to share a few different images that I captured.  I’m positive I’ll go back though!

Holly and I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas!  We hope you enjoy the week.

More next week!

Dan

–Dan Thompson