Howdy y'all. This will be my first trip report so bear with me here (pun intended). Areas visited: Joyce Kilmer/Slickrock Wilderness, Pisgah NF, Cherokee NF, and GSMNP

Drove from Nashville to the Cherohala Skyway on October 15. A friend and I were planning to catch the peak color in the Uncoi's/Smokies and we were in luck! As soon as I hit the Skyway, and on the way there, could tell all of the lower elevations were in peak color and looked much more intense than i've seen in the past few years. See video below.
https://youtube.com/shorts/swKJR2Zk-3Y







After getting stuck in Knoxville traffic and driving up the skyway, I hiked up to Huckleberry Knob that afternoon, with incredible rewards. Spent about 3 hours up here in total. My friend arrived about an hour before sunset. Noticed a large wilfire to the southeast, which we saw the next day as well.









Drove down to a small campground in Joyce Kilmer called Horse Cove. Nice little campground, although only about 8 sites with all but the last, most exposed one taken. It was right on the road and only had 2 good trees + a lamp post and somehow we made it work. Met some really nice folks here who had a group fire going, but we were lighting our stoves and pitching tarps when they were all winding down for bed.
The downside of catching mountain sunsets.



Had a lot of dew on our tarps but a beautiful overcast of a morning. Low 37º and sadly we forgot to take photos of our least comfy hangs of the year!


Had my Puerh tea, quickly packed our gear, and headed back up for the Cherohala skyway again and Huckleberry Knob. We couldn't get enough of the colors and wanted to see the peak in morning light. It did not disspoint, and we had the mountain to ourselves for about 1.5 hours:






We were already so close to the infamous old growth forest of Joyce Kilmer that we decided to stop and hike the short loop trail there to say some of the giant trees and the fall colors up close:







The tough decision was where to go next. We're on the southern tip of the Smokies but I had hyped up Round Mountain campground before the trip. Decided to drive all the way there conisdering our lust for a perfect hammock site, where we wouldn't again be hanging right next to someones camper as the night before. Boy was that a long but beautiful drive. 2.5 hours Only stopped twice.

We set up at my favorite site at Round Mountain (Pisgah NF) and gathered some wood.




Took one of the cars up to Max Patch to catch a sunset and possibly stargaze. We knew rain was coming but hoped for it to be more scattered. Not only did we miss sunset, but heard thunder shortly after arriving at the summit. Bolted back down to the car. Got some great gloomy twilight views though:





Was a cool, very rainy night at Round Mountain. We knew it would be gone by morning. That being said, I had about 2 inches of water in my kettle the next morning. Rain stopped about 6am... just in time for us to get most of the water off our gear! We decided the night before that we would dayhike one of the higher peaks in the Smoky Mountains. Mt. Cammerer fire tower was calling us, as we were already close to the north side of the park and both of us have a very strong history with this mountain. We would be able to camp at Cosby Campground (one of my favorite developed campgrounds) and have our gear set up before we hike up. As someone who usually backpacks, I love being able to walk from camp to the trailhead and vice versa. We set up camp and hiked on up... summiting around 3pm. The rewards were beyond imagining! The leaves were all but vanished above 4000ft however the color in the surrounding foothills was beyond what I can describe or photograph. Truly a special afternoon! We stayed at the tower until golden hour and committed to hiking at least half of the return trek in the dark. Worth it conisdering we had the tower to ourselves for almost 2 hours.





















Upon arriving at camp (around 745 pm) I drove my subaru down the campground road to find some dry wood as I knew all of the local markets were closed. This was a challenge considering all of the rain over the days before.. not to mention my jellyfied legs. In the end, I built us a very nice fire and cooked some dinner! Slept for nearly 10 hours, and woke up to a wind chill in the high 20's. Safe to say I'm glad I used my 20º quilt. Unfortunately we both failed to take photos of our set ups again! Our brains and bodies both were very exhausted.


Stopped at a little spot on Douglas lake on the way back, hoping for some views of the mountains we had just hiked. There was a heavy cloud layer blocking the high peaks, however still had some good views of the foothills and the I-40 Bridge:






Cheers!


P.s. apologies for the low resolution pics, I’m still trying to figure out how to upload them full resolution here. If anyone is interested in my full album of hi-res pics, I’d be happy to upload them to an image hosting site.