Route: Bullhead - Boulevard - Alum - Rainbow - Trillium - Brushy
Because not all of the trails are connected, we had to shuttle ourselves from Newfound Gap (Boulevard Trail) down to Alum Cave Trail. In order to be time efficient for this shuttle, we parked one car the night before at Newfound Gap. This allowed us to quickly and easily shuttle from one trailhead to the other. We selected this route because it allowed for the least amount of driving.
We parked our second vehicle at the Rainbow Falls Trailhead and walked the short distance to the Old Sugarlands Trailhead (Bullhead connector), where we began our hike just before 12:30am. The Bullhead trail is currently under maintenance and only open on weekends. We made good time going up Bullhead and were at the LeConte Lodge just before 3am. We refilled on water at the Lodge and began the descent via the Boulevard Trail. The Boulevard connects to the Appalachian Trail, which we traveled on for about 3 miles southbound in order to reach the car parked at Newfound Gap. We took about 20 minutes to drive to the Alum Cave Trailhead and then began our next lap after a short break at the car. We got to watch the sunrise as we hiked up the Alum Cave Trail and made it to the lodge for the second time around 8am where we took a short break. We then headed down the Rainbow Falls trail to resupply atour second car. We took a short break before beginning our final lap. From the Rainbow Falls Trailhead we hiked up Trillium Gap Trail and reached the lodge for the third and final time around 1:20pm. We descended via the Brushy Mountain Trail and took the Porters Creek Trail for the final mile down to the parking lot. We finished at around 4:15pm.
We tracked on Cade's Garmin watch and Anna's Gaia phone app. According to the Garmin, our total elapsed time was 15:44:10. Our moving time was 15:27:57. We paused both of these tracks on the car ride from Newfound Gap to Alum Cave Trailhead. We did not pause our devices during our breaks. We walked from Rainbow Falls Trailhead parking lot to the Old Sugarlands Trail and began tracking there. Our time reflects the 0.4 on the Old Sugarlands Trail to the Bullhead Trailhead. We stopped tracking upon reaching the gate at the Porters Creek Trailhead.