Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Poop

Probably the most related tale of our Smoky Mountain trip revolves around these 2 pictures:





The first is a tree limb that had fallen over the trail and looked suspiciously as if it had been scratched up by a bear. The trail was off a gravel, one-way, mountain road that only had one other car on it that we saw the entire 14 miles. R. was a little concerned by this, but it didn't bother me overmuch. We continued to walk along this trail a ways and then saw the second picture. Luckily, we had been at the visitor's center not too long before and had seen a replica of Bear scat. This had exactly the same look. R. was ready to throw in the towel, but I waved it off. It was just some poop after all.

We went another 1/4 of a mile or so and discovered another lump of scat--also right on the trail. This time I agreed with R.--time to head back. We didn't see any bears, but neither of us wanted to chance it. We'd rather see a bear from the confines of our own car.

And, that we did, the next day. Cade's Cove is a driving loop in the Smokies that is fairly popular. We were trying to get out, stuck in some nasty traffic, before we saw two park rangers by the road, directing traffic. We thought maybe some kind of fender bender, but as we passed we saw 3 black bears in the clearing right off the road. I tried to take a picture, but as the park rangers were waving us on (and we didn't think to stop for a second to disobey them) I never did get a shot of them.

Still, it was neat to see them (from afar)! I couldn't help but wonder if they felt a bit like a circus sideshow with all the people gawking from their cars.

1 comment:

Marie said...

Did you poke the scat to see how fresh it was or place your hand over it to see if it still held heat?
This is definitely the time of year to walk tall and carry a big stick through the woods:)