I grew up hiking the Smokies with my older brother, not experts, but not clueless.

We both know how fast light drops under a hardwood canopy in late October, and how sound carries

along water. We've done Cades Cove enough times to predict where traffic bunches and where the deer cross.

We were staying outside Townsend for a long weekend, trying to unplug after a rough year,

and we decided to do Abrams Falls because it felt familiar and safe.

Safe is a tricky word. We left our phones behind, mine on the nightstand at the cabin,

his in the glove box, because we wanted to stop checking messages every five minutes. We had two

headlamps, a small first aid kit, water, and one can of bear spray clipped to my belt. It was

late afternoon when we pulled into the parking area

off Cades Cove Loop Road. A volunteer at the signboard smiled like she'd said this a hundred

times and told us bears had been active near the creek and that we should turn around if we were

still on the trail at dusk. She tapped the drowning hazard sign with the tip of her pen, told us the rocks by the falls get slick,

and then asked us to sign in. We did. She asked us to sign back out. We said we would. The trail in

was the smokies, I know, packed leaves over hard dirt, roots like ribs underfoot, hemlock and laurel crowding the blind corners,

Abrams Creek to our right sounding bigger than it looks. The air had that cool sweetness you only get

when the maples explode into red, and the oaks are still holding on to the last of the orange.

We passed the usual little foot logs over side streams, stepped around a few muddy spots,

and fell into that autopilot pace brothers' get after years of moving in sync.

We didn't stop much.

We reached the falls in a little under an hour, and they were moving strong.

Spray hung over the pool.

We ate a bar each and drank some water.

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