Cheoah River

Yesterday we hiked the Appalachian Trail from Stecoah Gap to Yellow Creek Gap. On our way back from Yellow Creek to pick up the other car, we went by the Cheoah river. As it turned out, they had a release that day. The Cheoah is apparently one of the best rivers in the east when they release water from the dam (see more at www.cheoahriver.com). I have been by the river before, but during the release it was pretty dramatic. Below are pictures of kayakers playing in a hole nearby, and the suspension bridge that goes out over the river.

Mt. Cammerer

Saturday we hiked to the fire tower on Mt. Cammerer. This was one of the best views I've seen in the Smokies period. The view from the top is 360 degrees and completely unobstructed. The fire tower has been restored and is open, which was good because it was so windy you couldn't stand outside for long. It was actually a little scary and after taking a few photos my hands were absolutely freezing. The wind was loud, but not uncomfortable for the rest of the hike.  We took the Low Gap trail out of Cosby campground, then intersected with the AT at Low Gap. The trail to the fire tower is a short spur trail off the AT. The total mileage out and back is roughly 11.

Another Bear

This afternoon we were hiking in the Deep Creek area of the GSMNP. This time there was no standoff and we only saw it as it started to take off. It seemed pretty big and I marked off 25 steps from where it was standing. That's close enough for me.

Bear Encounter

We were hiking up Hyatt Ridge trail in the GSMNP Friday, on our way to camp and fish Raven Fork.  I was leading and I rounded a blind corner to surprise a mother bear with cubs. The adult bear scurried across the trail and I was sure I saw at least two cubs so we backed down the trail for just a few minutes and made some noise while we waited for them to clear out. As I went back around the corner I noticed that the cubs had taken to the trees. There were four adorable little cubs staring at us as they climbed up the same tree. I had gotten the camera out before coming back, just in case, but the picture only shows a few fuzzy dots.  At this point I realized that I didn't know what the proper protocol was in this case. We had taken an interesting class with a bear expert up in the park a few years ago. We learned how to react to bears : give them space, make noise, try to seem bigger to the bear, etc. But what do you do when the cubs go up a tree? How long do they stay there? If you go back too soon does the clock start back over? Should we stay on the trail or just get off of it and go around (harder in this case because of terrain)? Anyway,  we decided to hike about 100 yards back down the trail, take our packs off and rest while we waited on them to come down and get out of the area. We waited a full 30 minutes. Incidentally this seemed like about 2 hours. As we hiked back up we made all kinds of noise. We sang songs to the bears about leaving and I made up a "move out bear" call just for good measure. It went like this: "Move out bear!" in a quick authoritative tone.

I expected them to be gone, but even so I moved slowly back around the corner while we continued to clap and sing. It looked like the coast was clear. I looked to my right and saw the mother bear sitting up tall and staring directly at us from less than 15 yards! And the trail was cut into a hill, so she was on higher ground. Suddenly she seemed a lot bigger than the first time I saw her. I quickly whispered "Christy!" just to confirm that she saw it. She had and we quickly decided to exit stage left.

Thinking back I'm sure we could have just carried on our way up the trail. We were already beside her so going one way was probably as good as going another. But the thing is that bears don't generally hang around. We decided to let a ranger know about it and she agreed that 2 things were out of the ordinary. 1) Four bear cubs is apparently noteworthy and 2) it is considered assertive behavior for her to have hung around like that after getting her cubs out of the tree and off the trail. The ranger said that it could be nothing, but it is the kind of thing they keep track of in case the next time she becomes aggressive. She also said that maybe the bear was a first time mother and that sometimes they acted a little odd as new mothers of all species are wont to do.

When Christy suggested that we just forget fishing Raven Fork that day I agreed that the trout in Straight Fork were really fun to catch and a hotel really would be nice.

Not that I was scared or anything. Really.

Headed to Raven Fork

Tomorrow morning Christy and I head out on a trip to celebrate our 8th trip around the sun as a married couple. We will backpack in to the GSMNP and fly fish and camp on Raven Fork Friday. Then on Saturday we will end up in a hotel with dinner at our favorite restaurant. The good news is that it is only about 3 miles to the campsite - extremely short. The bad news is that we have to pack in waders (heavy boot foot waders), vests, rods, reels, etc. I was amazed I got it all in my pack. Christy's pack has stuff hanging off of it in every direction. I managed to get everything inside but my net. You can get by without a net well enough, but mine is bamboo and pretty light so I am taking it.

I bought Christy a new reel this week so earlier in the week I rigged it up with backing and new fly line. That was Tuesday. That put me in just the right frame of mind to be useless for any thing else since then. Hopefully the brookies are biting.

Black bear

Today Christy and I drove to the park, where we saw a black bear. This was the first bear we have seen wild in the eastern us, having seen both black and grizzly in Montana. Of course there was the requisite traffic problem, often referred to as a  "bear jam", to which we happily contributed.

Thru-hikers and glazes

Franklin is starting wake up for the spring with snowbirds and tourists coming back. As a result more people are starting to come by the Christy's art shop and today got to chat with an older AT thru-hiker. He was probably in his late fifties and was a little banged up so he was taking a few days off in Franklin to rest. His wife was mailing him sections of 'War and Peace' along the way. She would bind up small (and therefore light) sections of the book and mail them to him along he way. Pretty neat.

Also, we mixed up bigger batches of glaze and fired a kiln load. The good news is that we reproduced the colors of the glazes. The bad news is that where the application was a little thick or thin it really showed. I took the quality control hammer to most of them and kept the ones that didn't have many problems. The planter that I posted a week or so ago turned out really good.

AT Hike, Fly Fishing

Saturday we did another section of the AT: Wayah Bald to Tellico Gap. It was a fairly easy hike and not too long (9.5 mi), but since we haven't hiked a ton recently I was more than ready for the end of the hike by the time we reached it. We have been day hiking sections of the AT by leaving a car at both ends.  A couple things were interesting. One, we hiked through a long section that had been burned by the forest service in a controlled burn about a week beforehand. The whole place smelled like a camp fire. Secondly, we came across an "Angel Dome". A retiree had setup a huge orange dome that seated maybe 8 -10 people. He was giving shelter, hot dogs, cokes, etc to thru hikers. He was a great guy and though he offered me a coke my conscious wouldn't allow it since I had one in the van not 5 miles away. He had been there about 2 weeks and had over 180 folks come through. He was at Burningtown Gap which is roughly 180 or so miles from the start of the AT. A few thru hikers I saw in the area had been on the trail about 2 weeks. By that time a hot dog and coke are pretty nice. Here is what the dome looked like:

Sunday we did our first fly fishing of the season. We headed up the the SMNP in between church services and fished a couple hours. It was nice and we both managed to keep from getting skunked Christy had a brown and I took a brookie. We had thought about going to the Tuck which is stocked, delayed harvest, and nationally renowned - and about 15 minutes from our house - but we both like the solitude of fishing in the park for wild trout even though it means fewer and smaller fish.