The fall colors in eastern Tennessee exploded this week into rusty oranges and browns accented by brilliant patches of yellow and scarlet. We headed for higher terrain on the Cumberland Plateau to get a bird’s-eye view of nature’s spectacular display. The sky was clear, the breeze light and the temps in the low 70’s.
We started our walk in the woods with a 1/3-mile detour from the Stone Door Ranger Station to Laurel Falls.
Hiking in the fall can be dangerous. The Great Stone Door Trail was hidden beneath a thick blanket of colored leaves that camouflaged trip hazards like roots and rocks. We could not stop looking up at the brilliant colors illuminated by bright sunlight, compounding the danger of stumped toes.
The Laurel lookout into the deep canyons featured a Color Blind Viewer. Its EnChroma Lenses were designed to aide red-green colorblindness.
Exposed cliffs form a rim around the three, 800-foot deep gorges that come together in this wilderness preserve.
We ate lunch in the shade of weathered scrub oaks on a massive, sandstone bluff that provided panoramic views in three directions.
The Collins River, Big Creek and Savage Creek carved the giant valleys that come together here.
The ring of sheer cliffs and exposed-sandstone overhangs average 200-feet tall.
Legend has it, Indians and even buffalo and wild game used the 10-feet wide, 100-feet deep fissure in the sheer cliffs of the rim, known as the Great Stone Door, to access the gulfs below.
Looking up at the massive crack in the sandstone resembles a door through the rock that was left ajar.
The Great Stone Door provides access to 55-miles of hiking trails in the valleys.
The mile-long Great Stone Door Trail leads to an incredible rock formation and fantastic views from the sandstone ledges above. It was a perfect choice for leaf peeping on an ideal, Tennessee, fall day.