Late Sunday afternoon, I got the urge to hike.  Pat, however, did not.  He was in the middle of a project.  I started to settle back into the couch, but then thought, “I didn’t move to Chattanooga so I could sit on the couch.”

With a little surfing, I discovered there was a section of the Cumberland Trail on Signal mountain and it sounded awesome.

Based on the map scale and the “pinky measurement” technique I’ve developed (patent pending), I guestimated it was between 2 and 2.5 miles one way.

As we started down the trail, we passed a sign that said Edward’s Point Overlook was 2.9 miles away (there goes my patent!).  I resigned myself to the reality that we were not going to make it to Edward’s Point today.

We made our way down some treacherous steps and then some even more treacherous steps.  After about 20 minutes of walking, we made it to another overlook.  Black Vultures soared on a thermal, rising up over the mountain and disappearing on the other side.  I tried to get a shot, but they disappeared before I could even get my lens cap off.  I shot a boat down on the river below instead.

We kept on going, which might have been a mistake.  I had trouble getting Tisen to drink water.  He wouldn’t drink out of my hand and he shied away from a water stream.  I paused to find a depression in a rock he could drink from.

As we continued, we heard a waterfall.  I thought maybe water would be nearby, but each stream was just a damp mark on the side of the mountain.

I watched Tisen plow through poison ivy.  As much as I knew I should avoid touching him, I couldn’t help myself.  I suspect even my camera is now covered in poison ivy oil.

We’d made it about 200 yards past a frightening bridge when our time ran out.  With no photo ops since noticing a cluster of mushrooms high above us,  I was cursing every ounce I was carrying.

When we stopped again at the rock with the depression for more water, Tisen laid flat out on his side, head down, sides heaving.  I wasn’t sure he was going to get up again.  But, when I stood up, he popped up like he’d just been teasing me and even led the way up the steepest parts of the trail.  I was really impressed when he hopped up those scary steps full of energy.

We stopped at the overlook in the park one last time to shoot the Eastern sky.  The light was better, although the sun was still too high for shooting towards the West.

Hot, tired, and hungry, we headed back down the mountain to return home.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t relax right away–both Tisen and I required poison ivy detoxification.  Tisen does not much like baths, but he seemed to feel pretty good afterwards.  Or maybe it was after dinner?