100 Miles (almost) in the Smokies
Great Smoky Mountains Natonal Park
3-9 June 2010
| Day Six - 8 June 2010 | |||||||
All day today was just walking along Lakeshore Trail to Site 90. Easy day when I'm just hiking along with no worries about turning off onto new trails and such, even though I had to be kinda careful about reading the signs at intersections.
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Ran into this little guy just after I started walking. He stayed still for several pictures, and barely moved when I reached for him. I like how he looks so big in the first pictures...but I had to put one in to show how small he actually was. Interestingly, he smelled like poop after I picked him up. No smell as I was taking the pictures, but the worst I've ever smelled from a snake as I was holding him. Enough to make me wash my hands after I put him down! |
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Another little cascade...these things were everywhere. | ||||||
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Feathers all over the place here on the trail. Obvious signs of a scuffle right next to where I took this picture. No bones anywhere, but it looks like a turkey lost the battle. | ||||||
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| More of these little plants...they were pretty cool, and here you can see how they stretch along beside the trail in big patches. If you get down low, they look like trees in the Avatar forest or something. So bright and shiny, even though the picture on the right doesn't show it. Edit: gunner76 says, "They are Running Cedar Lycopodium digitatum. Use to be very common in North Carolina but hard to find now. low-growing evergreen plant, in a group of plants known as clubmosses. Clubmosses aren't really mosses; they're more closely related to ferns." Hawk-eye says they're not hard to find where he is...they grow in areas with poor soil. |
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Stopped at Site 81 for Chili Mac...that's one of the better Mountain House meals, IMO. It's still a small challenge to get the fire started in the damp Smokies, so while it's cooking I put my firewood in an open ziplock next to the Bushbuddy. The heat gets the bag all steamy like a greenhouse, and some of the moisture vents out the top. After I take the pot off, I stack some of the wood over the Bushbuddy so it looks about like a log cabin fire to dry it some more. As I've said before, the Bushbuddy has a bit more fiddle factor than a cannister stove, especially in wet environments...but I like the feel of cooking on a fire I built myself, and knowing that I have unlimited fuel. I usually keep the BB burning while I eat, just for atmosphere. A father and his teenage son showed up as I was eating...I was surprised that the father recognized the Bushbuddy. I held it up for him to check out the inner holes...he liked it but didn't sound convinced to buy one yet. | ||||||
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This little toad visited with me while I was cooking. He had been hiding under the plywood. | ||||||
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And redressing my blisters. The duct tape made them feel a lot better b/c it stopped the friction, but I could still feel the pressure from how big they had swollen up to. It was kinda cool, really...when I rested for a while, they'd swell up and the pressure would increase. So when I first started walking again, there would be a lot of pressure under there, but after a few hundred feet I had pushed a lot of the fluid off the bottom of my foot so there wasn't much pressure. Odd feeling. Later on, I figured out that the reason the pressure dropped was b/c I was pushing the blister bigger...and it even expanded up between my toes. Gross! | ||||||
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Single track and double track...but have you ever seen a triple track trail? I hadn't. This is a horse trail, so I think the horses caused the trail to look like this. | ||||||
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Made it to Hazel Creek. Forney Creek Trail is the one I hiked on Day 4 that was so beautiful. The sign next to this one explains that the buildings around here are remnants of a village that once had a couple thousand people, mainly as part of a logging community. |
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Just across the bridge lies this old inn from the village. It looks pretty nice on the outside but it isn't kept up on the inside. I walked around all the rooms and it was pretty cool to think about how the inn operated. Graffiti coved parts of the walls...a few pictures and lots of writing about not building the lake road that dated from 1973 and later. The rooms were pretty small and it was obvious that the few electric lights had been added after it was built. The maintenance building behind it was new construction, and there was a guy doing some yard work going in and out of it. Waved hello but didn't talk to him. |
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The inn faces Hazel Creek, so I sat across from the in for a ~15 minute break to have a snack and rest my feet. Then I saw a shimmering little golden patch in the water. At first I thought I was about to be rich, but they were only fish. I thought they might be goldfish but I'm pretty sure they were red bass. They all stayed right in the same spot on the ground, swimming just enough against the current to stay steady. Pretty cool. It's the orange spot near the center of this pic. |
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Here is bear #3...the fuzzy black spot in the center. This one never saw me and I couldn't see it very well, but it was down at the bottom of the draw as the trail wound around it. I wish I had the video camera out so I could have zoomed in better, but it was in my pack and I didn't want to make noise getting it out...so this is the best picture you get. I walked very slowly so I could keep a good view of it as it walked away from me, stopping to rub against some trees and flip over a log on the way. It was interesting how it just ambled along like there was nothing pressing in the world...not a care in the world. Obviously the top predator in the area. | ||||||