Laurel Falls at Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The parking areas for this popular short hike are on both sides of the road, so watch for cars and people.

If you're not from the hills, you may not know the mountain laurel. It's the smaller bush with small leaves, on either side of the trail. Blooming in the early summer, it turns large patches of woods and hillsides to pink or white.

A few yards up the trail is rhododendron. It wears larger leaves, stands taller, and flowers with hues from white to purple. Laurel does well on dry soil; rhododendron appears more often where it is damp. A stand of either is called a "laurel hell," because that's what it is if you are trying to get through it. The wedge-shaped black bear glides through it with ease and speed.

This area just feels different. It is warmer, drier and the light is more intense. You are on a south-facing slope that is more directly exposed to the sun. Pines do well here. Notice that the ground is littered more with pine needles than other kinds of leaves. In fact, you are in the middle of a pine-oak forest, with a few maples thrown in. The trees here are more adapted to the warmer conditions than those growing in the ravine on up the trail. Notice how the forest changes a little farther along.

Can you tell the difference between this area and the last one? The oaks, maples, tulip trees and dogwoods in this cooler ravine offer shade that makes it a little more pleasant in the summer. The leaves of the trees are colorful in the fall, but their dense canopy also blocks sunlight from the forest floor, so the groundcover tends to be sparse.

As you continue up the trail, notice the change in surroundings as you switch from ridge to ravine, and back to ridge again all the way to the falls. The direction the slope faces determines what lives there.

If you're a bit winded by now, have a seat on the rocks. These rocks stand on edge because of internal earth pressures that jammed colliding layers of rocks and soil together. The only way they could go was up. The rocks will be here for a few more millions of years, until freezing water cracks and crumbles them. How does that happen?

The answer is in your refrigerator. When you fill an ice tray the surface of the water is level. In a few hours it freezes, expands and forms dome-toped ice cubes. Water in the small cracks in the rocks has no lace to go, so it splits the rock apart.

In a word , that's one of the ways these mountains were formed and how they're being torn down.

This stream is typical of the unnumbered thousands in the Southern mountains. It does an important job. Moisture-loving plants thrive along its banks (hemlock, beech, and rhododendron). Animals drink from its flow. It contributes to the rivers far below. Even in the driest of weather this one still runs; during spring floods it gushes about in all directions.

This is a restful place anytime of year; shady in summer, sunny in winter. Nature's little coves and sheltered places are often more satisfying than her most majestic extravaganzas.

What is there to say about such a view? Spring wildflowers, fall color, icy beauty in winter and lush green in summer. It has everything. Your bench in this little amphitheater is a choice seat for Nature's displays and a place you'll not want to leave. When posing for photos don't back off the edge!

Stiff winds twist, prune, bend and break these trees. Even normally straight pines are contorted into odd shapes. The higher up the mountain, the more pronounced this effect. Lighting also works on the trees. Many of them bear stripes and scars from crown to ground, reminders of past run-ins with thunderbolts.

Rock tripe, the scaly lichen on rock faces from here to the falls, has found a way to cope with the harsh weather. Being only one-half inch tall, but maybe dozens of years old, it hugs the rock and successfully resists the wind that would tear it loose. During brief wet periods it soaks up whatever moisture it can and then waits out the drought again. The lichen eventually destroys its host by secreting acids that etch the surface of the rock, flaking it loose in microscopic bits and breaking it apart like the freezing water-much more slowly, but no less surely.

The rest of the trail clings to the mountainside as you walk along a narrow rock ledge to the falls. Sheer drops are long and steep, so be careful. The trees along the way sometimes create a tunnel effect, almost closing completely overhead for considerable stretches. Contrast this mood with the open forest and gentle slopes of the first half of the trail. The ruggedness and steepness of these "gentle" mountains are hidden by vegetation. On maps, or from the air, terrain like this is misleading, so hiking can involve considerably more effort than first thought.

Laurel Branch tumbles down from Cove Mountain and eventually becomes part of Little River. It is representative of the hundreds of miles of Smokies streams, whose purity is unexcelled by streams anywhere else in the United States. Their beauty appears in many forms, slow trickles and gurgling branches to torrents and cascades. The abundance of surface water comes from the heavy annual rainfall of about 55 inches per year. The rocks near the falls are covered with wet, slick algae, and safe footing is impossible to find. Please don't mar their beauty or risk an injury by climbing on them.

Perhaps this trail has been your introduction to the mountain wilderness. It is short, not very steep, and barely stretches beyond the sounds of the highway, but maybe that is sufficient for your tastes and physical condition. If you would like greater challenges and more solitude, they are here, too. For example, this trail will take you to a majestic virgin hardwood forest about a half-mile beyond Laurel Falls. The trail is steeper, rougher and is not paved.