Our first spring mountain hike

A visitor from Russia provided me with my first excuse to get into the mountains this spring. Ivan Zassoursky, a journalism prof at Moscow State University, wanted to see the mountains, and I was more than willing to oblige.

We carved out a few hours from his visit on Tuesday and motored up through Townsend and along the Little River.

We started our walk at The Sinks and traveled between one and two miles up the Meigs Creek Trail. The views in the mountains were still good because the trees had not fully leafed out yet.

The park was remarkably free of visitors. It was the middle of the week in early April, so that won't last long. Still, it's always nice to be in the mountains -- and even nicer to be there without a lot of other people around.

A few pictures of the trip can be found at my Picasa file.