Top: Annie checks out the view from the top of the Gunter Fork trail about one mile past the Laurel Gap shelter. The clouds were starting to build over the main range of the Smokies to our north, and we could hear the first rumblings of thunder from the oncoming storm.
Bottom: Green - that's the best way to describe this stretch of the Balsam Mountain trail. The rain hadn't moved in yet, but we knew it was coming, along with a lot of lightning. Being at an elevation of close to 6,000 feet, it's not easy to keep hiking through the storm, but we were only a few miles from Tricorner Knob, our destination for the hike.