Old Sugarland Trail, directly across from the Great Smoky Mountain sign at the Sugarland entrance to the park, is a nice moderate hike. The section that connects the Old Sugarland Trail to Two Mile Lead I would describe as more verging on difficult. The whole hike is 3.5 miles and the connector part is an uphill slog though. The trail hasn't been maintained very well after the wind storms and we had to climb through a good number of downed trees on the trail. The cut through is still marked so the trail is supposed to be usable, but it's the least maintained I've ever hiked in the Smokies. One of the bi-products of hiking a wilder trail is that we came upon three bears this particular hike. This isn't the first time I've hiked up on a black bear in the Smokies, but this was the most I've seen on one. The first was a mother bear and cub on the cut through trail to Two-Mile Lead. The second was on Two-Mile Lead, which is actually used as a riding trail for the Sugarlands Stables so that particular sighting was a bit more surprising for me. It was a warm day though so I feel like a lot of the bears were out trying to find more food.
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AuthorA librarian who likes to travel and experience life. CategoriesArchives
June 2022
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