100 Miles (almost) in the Smokies
Great Smoky Mountains Natonal Park
3-9 June 2010
| Day Seven - 9 June 2010 | ||||||||||
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We had a bear last night...close! The site is pretty big, with a little stream running thru it and emptying into the lake, and a few little copses of trees inside the bigger area of the campsite. When I hiked up, there were 5 guys already set up there who had boated in. Three of us were standing next to one of the copses, talking about bears, the ones I had seen, what to do if you see a brown bear vs a black bear, etc. Then I said I was gonna go check out the lake and went back to my hammock to put some stuff away. I looked right at my camera and said, "I"m just going to the lake so I don't need it this time." But as I walked past the copse of trees, I saw a bear's butt walking away from me down the trail on the other side of the copse! He must have been 10-15' from us the whole time! I ran back to my hammock to get the camera and told the guys that I had just seen a bear right by where we were talking. One of the guys (a federal agent with a gun) went up the hill to watch over us while one of the guys went with me to see if we could get some pictures. We walked slow and talked so we didn't spook him, but we didn't see him again. When we got back to the camp, the agent (Gabe) said the bear had walked right down the trail back the way we had gone, so he was on the other side of camp, up the hill. We went over there to see if we could find him. We stayed on the trail this time, looking up towards the ridgeline. It was starting to get dark so we didn't want to go stomping around out there with the bear. But we couldn't see him, so we decided to go back to camp...just when Gabe said, "He's right there!" He was laying in some brush about 20' from us and we couldn't see him. Didn't smell anything, either...not sure why they smell sometimes and not others so I'll have to look that up. Anyway, it was too dark to get good pictures, so I put my video camera on Nightshot Plus and got some ok video. Then Gabe took a picture with flash and the bear didn't seem to like that. He huffed once and stood up, so we decided to give him some room and started walking back to camp. The bear went up the hill and we could hear him walking around the camp all night. The boaters had a cooler out, but just piled stuff on top of it so it didn't look like a cooler. They thought it would be ok b/c everything inside was sealed up...hot dogs and such.
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Close-up of my setup. I had the MacCat over it all night but took this pic as I was packing up. | |||||||||
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To the left is the hill where the bear was walking around all night. Pretty close... | |||||||||
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| Here's most of the campsite. I'm standing next to the copse where we first saw the bear, so you can't see it in the picture.
The fire was on the other side of the tent in the back right. We had some trouble getting it started b/c of the wet wood...very small flame that wouldn't grow. One of the guys had some aerosol bug juice, so I sprayed that over the wood until it flamed up hot enough to burn. Maybe not the safest thing, but it wasn't long until we had a big ole comfy fire burning. We sat around for a couple hours talking...great bunch of guys. The preacher (who owned the boat) slept in the tent in the right foreground. He could hear the bear walking right next to his tent that night, and in the morning we found fresh tracks about 2' away! The bear didn't bother anything or anyone so we all left it alone (I actually slept pretty well, but some of them were awake all night listening). But this was enough to convince the preacher to put his cooler on the boat instead of leaving it in camp the next night! Haha...there was a full-grown man in the pup tent in the picture on the right. He borrowed it from the preacher, and read on the box where it said "two man tent." Two MEN...although it was only six feet long. He was about six feet tall, so he had to sleep diagonally in it! I thought it was a gear tent when I first walked up! |
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Their boat was tied off about 150 yards from the campsite. Beautiful area, especially in the morning. | |||||||||
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| The bear decided to peak into the boat overnight...he didn't get into the boat, which is surprising b/c an open bag of corn chips was in the dash. The muddy spots are his pawprints, and the pic on the right shows a close-up. | ||||||||||
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Didn't come out so well in the picture, but this is a bear track. | |||||||||
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| I saw old abandoned vehicles in several spots along this hike, but this last section had more than usual. You can tell how old they are by the body styles, but also check the picture on the right...there's a full-grown tree growing THRU the car! Interesting... | ||||||||||
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My last white blaze :( and the beginning of the short road walk. | |||||||||
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 I stopped at a picnic table along the road to take some last pictures, shoot some video, and just relax before I stepped back into civilization. Below are some pics of the lake side of Fontana Dam. |
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The Gossamer Gear Miniposa was comfortable for this trip, but a rip started at the hydration port where the side panel attaches to the back panel. I never had more than the recommended 30 lbs in it, and I'm pretty easy on my gear so I never jerked it up off the ground or anything. I'll have to call customer service and see if they'll repair it. | |||||||||
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Here's the other side, showing what the hydration port is supposed to look like. | |||||||||
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At the west end of the dam (or the "north" end if you were hiking the AT northbound). | |||||||||
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The river side, crossing the dam. It's a long way down there! | |||||||||
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| I got to the gift shop at the eas end of the dam, and was elated to see that they sold ice cream! I bought an ice cream bar, but decided it wasn't enough so I went back and bought another. Awesome. The lady working there was so nice (even though I stunk like mad)...we talked for a while, and she let me use the phone to call Jennifer since I didn't have reception. A little while later, her husband brought her a cheeseburger and fries...and she brought me half of it! I didn't want to take her food, but she said she wouldn't eat it all anyway. More trail magic! Great burger, good fries, and they even gave me a bottle of water. Really nice folks. She took these pics of me, too...I thought my pack had gotten even smaller, but I still had about a day's worth of food in there. |
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It was supposed to rain today, and I was barely ahead of the storm. Here's a pic of part of it rolling in...so windy that I had to pull a table farther under the overhang to eat my burger! It rained pretty hard for a while as I waited on Jennifer. Several bikers pulled in, and a few were soaking wet. | |||||||||
| Jennifer finally showed up...she had gotten a little turned around b/c the GoogleMaps directions told her to turn left where she was supposed to turn right, but she finally found me. And immediately told me how bad I smelled! Haha... She brought be clean clothes and shower stuff, and there was a shower at the gift shop so I went to get cleaned up...and realized that I didn't have a towel! Again, the nice gift shop lady came to the rescue...with a sheet! I scrubbed everything twice, dried off with the sheet, and went back to the car to stuff everything I had into a garbage bag so we couldn't smell it! Off to Florida for Megan's graduation! |
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