Smokey the Bear

The first time I ever visited the Smokey Mountains National Park during the busy summer season was in 2006. The traffic was very slow, especially around Pigeon Forge and Cade's Cove. The traffic, coupled with our usually late start meant that we didn't arrive to walk the trails until the early evening. We decided to hike the Laurel falls trail. The hike is relatively easy, with the trail up to the falls being roughly paved, and the grade up the mountain not to steep. The falls lie 1.3 miles along the trail, and provide a pleasant blast of cool air, as the trail passes over a bridge in front of them.

We continued along the trail beyond the falls wanting to reach the old growth forest at about 2 miles. Very few people hike beyond the falls, though the are is beautiful, with Giant Tulip Poplar, Maple, and Great white oaks. just as we were reaching the area of maple, we stopped to investigate one tree's unusual flowers. as we were using our Audubon book to determine the species of the tree, because we are die hard nerds, I'm afraid, we heard a loud scraping behind us. Spinning around we saw, climbing a giant tulip just 10 yards away, a large black bear! Of course, we'd left our camera at home. This bear was very close. We believe he must have been waiting for us to turn our backs so he could get a good start up the tree. He was absolutely silent until his paws started gripping the rough bark. He climbed about 80feet straight up into what was probably about 100-110 ft tree. He stop at the tree's first branch, and surveying the area, looked right down at us, as if to say "You wouldn't dare come after me up here". Then he climbed down into the top portion of the thick trunk, which was hollow. Apparently, he was going to sleep for the night. It was only 5:30, but maybe he had a busy day. This is one of the closest encounters I've ever had with a large wild animal, and certainly the closest I've been to any that might eat meat.

To add a little icing to our cake, we also saw a coyote standing in the road as we were leaving the park, which I had never seen before, despite growing up in the country. The Smokey Mountains are one of those areas which a wonderful to visit any time of year.