A Stupid Thing to Do

One of my earliest long-distance backpacking trips was in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It began a few days from my 16th birthday and my actual birthday occurred at a trail shelter near the summit of a 6,000-foot mountain called Big Cataloochee. I recall that it got very cold that morning--close to freezing (June 28).

This was back in the early 1970s when the Park still had chain link across the fronts of the trail shelters to protect overnight backpackers from bears. Because in those days most such folk did not practice safe bear-country habits and bears were attracted to the shelters because of the smell of food and actual food items left out where the bears could take them. Back then it was nice to be able to close and secure that chain link door and go to sleep knowing that a bear couldn't get in.

A couple of nights after that we were staying at another shelter called Peck's Corner. It got kind of crowded as this shelter was at the Appalachian Trail and lots of hikers use it. Fortunately, as things turned out, it also had the chain link barrier. Why 'fortunately'? Because one of the backpackers had brought along a can of tuna fish. For lunch he opened the can, walked out in front of the shelter, and drained all of that oil and fish juice on a large flat boulder a few feet from the chain link door. Then he came back in and prepared his meal.

In a few minutes a mother bear and three tiny cubs showed up. I suspect they smelled the tuna fish. But before the mama bear could get to the shelter she pointed her nose to the sky and seemed to be sensing something the rest of us could not. Then she rushed back to the tree where she'd stashed her tiny babies, called them down, and retreated to the deep forest.

Why? We found out.

In short order a very large, very scarred male bear appeared. A few people who'd been outside the shelter rushed in and the chain link door was closed and secured just in time, for he then came right up to it and peered in at all of us humans 'safely' inside.

Then he went to the big boulder where the idiot had drained his can of tuna fish. This boulder had about the same surface size on top as a big dining room table. Let's say four by six feet. But it was also about two feet thick. We're talking a mass amount of stone. Immovable, you might say. Here's what happened.

That big, scarred up bear began to lick the oil from the boulder. He licked it all off the top where the idiot had drained it, and then followed the streamlets of oil down the side of the boulder. Some of the oil had followed the contour of the rock and were now under the weight of it. So the bear stood to the side, hooked his claws under the lip, and lifted that mass so that he could lick the tuna fish oil from underneath the boulder. He hefted it up like it was nothing. They way you might move a dining room chair out of your way.

I kid you, not. (Keep in mind he did this with one arm while standing three-legged to do it.)

When he had gotten all of that smelly, delicious, yummy fish oil he released the boulder and it fell back into place with a thump that I felt through the soles of my boots.

At that point he turned his attention back to the shelter. He walked up to the chain link that was protecting us and he peered inside with those beady, dark, black-bear eyes. There was no humor in those eyes. There was no pity hiding in the depths. He was trying to figure out how to get to the food that he knew was in there with us. His nose was going snuff-snuff.

It was at that moment that he stood up on his back legs. I'd already realized that he was an enormous bruiser, but when you see one stand up like that you realize how big they are. The bear placed his paws on the chain link and he began to push. Yeah. He was trying to use his sheer bulk, and the power of the same muscles that had hefted that massive boulder to shove that damned chain link fence right the heck in. With every push he would give out with this little grunt.

Push! Oof! Push! Unh! Push! Grar!

After a few such efforts he seemed to realize that the steel was stronger than he was and he settled back where he sat and stared at us for a little while, those dark, black eyes smoldering with the frustration of a missed opportunity. If only he'd arrived a second or two sooner, before the door had closed in his face.

A few minutes later he was gone. Poof. Vanished back into the forest. Everyone came out of the shelter. He did not return.

I was reminded of this memory because I heard the story of a guy who backpacked into a remote part of Yellowstone National Park a couple of years ago. On the second day of his journey into the wilderness, thick with Grizzly bears who are far larger and far more aggressive than black bears, this shit-for-brains opened up his backpack to discover that the tuna fish he had brought along with him had leaked out and the liquid inside had permeated his pack and his clothing and everything in it and on it with the pungent scent of tuna fish.

To make a longer story very short, nothing happened to this idiot. No grizzly bear appeared to eat the now tuna-flavored moron. But I was reminded of the incident with the black bear. And it was all part of the lesson that I learned that day at Peck's Corner. And that lesson was never to bring any food item that is so pungent that even humans can smell it from a distance. Especially something like a can or packet of tuna fish that can leak out and turn you into a predator's target.

I mean...don't. Just don't.

See that kid inside the Laurel Gap Shelter? That was me. On June 28, 1973, the day of my 16th birthday. This was back in the days when the National Park Service had chain link on the fronts of the shelters to protect dumbass backpackers from bears. These days the chain link is gone. The Park Service has pretty much trained backpackers to not do stupid shit like get tuna fish all over the shelters, and to be sensisble and hang their food in bags away from the overnight shelters and tents.

Naughty Bear.

Today I drove over to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I had a great time, but did not see quite the wildlife I wanted to spot. For the first time since the elk reintroduction to the Smokies, I saw not a single elk in Cataloochee. But I did get to see a ranger release a naughty bear that had been darted and temporarily caged for lurking around a campground.

I also found the coolest picnic area I have seen in the park, so far. It looked like the Flintstones made it.

View driving in to Cataloochee.

The Park ranger invited us to watch him release the naughty bear.

Did the Flintstones build these?! Coolest picnic area. Ever.

Heintooga Overlook Picnic Area.

Waiting. Waiting. ACTION!

Lions and Bears and Cliffs!

Because I like to spend as much time as possible outdoors, and as often as I can in very wild places, some of my friends and acquaintances think I take chances or visit dangerous spots. This is not so. In fact, because I do spend much of my time wandering around on foot or in a kayak--or often just chilling out at the campsite, I tend to be far safer than those who find their pleasures inside the cities and towns where they live.

People will see a photo of me standing on a mountaintop and think I could fall off. Most of the time such photos seem risky when in fact they are not, at all. I know people who climb cliff faces while hanging by their fingertips above sheer drops of over a thousand feet. Now, that is taking risks. I don't do such stuff.

Or I will show someone a photo of a bear I encountered while hiking and they will ask me why I take such chances or be horrified that I don't carry a gun with me when in the deep forest. And my answer to them is that the chance of being injured by a wild animal is far less than being struck by lightning (I do take shelter when I encounter thunderstorms). Far more likely is the risk of being injured in your auto or shot by stray gunfire in town. If I hike in grizzly bear territory I will carry pepper spray. No grizzly bear has ever been within 300 meters of me and even those run the other way.

What I do when I can--those camping trips, those hikes, those kayak journeys on rivers...those are all very safe endeavors. Is there any risk at all? Sure. There is risk in pretty much everything one does. But I never feel unsafe when I'm in the forests and on the rivers unless a thunderstorm seems imminent. Cliffs? Wild animals? Just practice common sense and everything is cool.

Not dangerous, at all. Like walking on a sidewalk.

Alligator Rocks, North Carolina.

McAfee Knob, Virginia.

Lindy Point, West Virginia. Yeah, the temptation to scale that tower was there, but I didn't go for it.

The bear and I startled one another. He ran away. Douthat State Park, Virginia.

Talus field, Sherando Lake Recreation Area, Virginia.

Cliffs of Hawksbill Mountain, North Carolina.

"Preach it, brother Bob!"

Carefully hiking the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park.

Megafauna East.

If you want to see lots of wildlife and lots of large animals, the American West has that championship tied up. The selection of large creatures and vast numbers of animals here on the eastern side of the USA is rather limited by comparison. Unless or until efforts are made to repatriate species that are now vanished from our landscape, there are few places where you can be guaranteed to see such animals.

I've mentioned before that Florida and other parts of the American deep south are great for large animals and species diversity. But if you're not in that part of the country and you want to look elsewhere, then the best option for you would be the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

For species diversity in general, there are few places on the entire planet as solid as the Great Smokies. You could spend an entire lifetime exploring the slopes of those mountains searching out and identifying the dizzying array of flora. In fact, some botanists indeed spend their careers there doing just that.

The animal life there is also impressive. It's one of the few places in southern Appalachia where I can generally depend on being able to view lots of wildlife and lots of larger animals. Because of the elk reintroduction a visitor to the Park can now see these huge deer in various parts of the Smokies. One section of the area was chosen for reintroduction and now they have spread out into other parts of the Park. On visiting Cataloochee you can pretty much guarantee being  able to spot them in the fields and meandering in the deep  forests.

The west has both brown and black bears. We don't have Griz here, but we do have plenty of black bears and if there is one place you can see them, it's inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In fact, it's hard to make an extended trip to the Park and not see bears.

While mountain lions have yet to repopulate this part of the country, you can sometimes spot bobcats inside the Smokies protected boundaries. Until the puma is repatriated, bobcats are the biggest wild feline you'll spot here. Also sometimes seen in the woods here are both gray and red foxes. And, while they may not have been historically part of the ecosystem, coyotes have populated the mountains in good numbers and have filled the niche formerly occupied by Timber wolves and Red wolves. Contrary to negative propaganda inspired by gun owners, the presence of coyotes is a great sign for the Smokies.

One can sometimes get tired of seeing white-tailed deer in the forests, farmlands, and  even citiscapes of the east. But I still get a kick out of seeing them in the Smokies. They're actually not as common inside the Park as they are outside of it, since they have adapted so well to living alongside humans. To me, white-tailed deer in the Park are still a sign of wilderness.

One animal that is not welcome in the Park but which has firmly established itself is the Wild hog. These are largely descendants of European boars brought into the area to supply nearby hunting preserves before and shortly after the Park was formed. These are non-native animals and have created many of the problems one associates with invasive species. Still, it can sometimes be a thrill to spot one of these alien creatures in the deep forests.

A couple of other large animals that have been reintroduced to the Smokies are Northern river otters and beavers. Both of these were hunted relentlessly until they were gone from most of the southern Appalachians, but have now been encouraged to return. Neither are common in the Park, but you can spy them from time to time if you know where to go and are careful and quiet.

I'm hoping that at some time there will be an effort to reintroduce the American bison to the Great Smoky Mountains. They, too, were exterminated and should be allowed to return. But the Park is now closed tightly in by communities with lots of people and lots of development. This is a severe and ongoing problem for the Park. The people who now live so close to the boundaries in large numbers would likely balk at the idea of returning North America's largest land animal to the forests and fields here. But maybe it can happen.

Also, I feel certain that the Mountain lion will--on its own--come back to this part of eastern North America. If that happens before I die, I'd love to see one stalking through our southern Appalachian forests.

For a complete list of the mammals of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, you can look here.

It's not a Red wolf, but close enough. Coyotes have colonized the Park.

This is why big animals can come back here...plenty of wild habitat.

A bull elk I photographed in the Park.

A herd of elk at rest in a field in Cataloochee.

I still find it sometimes hard to believe that the elk have returned.

Turkey were hard to see when I was a kid visiting the Park. Now they're very, very common. These I photographed while at the Sugarlands Visitor Center.

Turkey flock in Cataloochee. They browse side by side with the elk.

I cheated a little here. I photographed this black bear in Virginia, but even as grainy as this photo turned out (both the bear and I were surprised to see one another), it's better than any of my bear photos taken in the Smokies.

I got this photo of this regal buck in Cades Cove.

White-tailed deer in the snow in Cades Cove two winters ago.

Bison bull in South Dakota. I hope to see these creatures repatriated to the southern Appalachians some day.

Skipping Ahead.

Okay. I don't want to get bogged down in a rut of boring travelogue. So, here's where I cut to the chase and post some animal photos.

Because, really, that was the main reason I wanted to take the trip to Glacier National Park. Yes, it was going to be cool to see the very last of Park's fading glaciers. To be sure, I wanted to say that I'd seen Glacier National Park while there were still a few glaciers in the damned place! And there they were, indeed. Pathetic, rocky, streaked with dirt and soot. I can say that I saw them before humans pumped so much carbon gas into the atmosphere that we had heated the planet to such an extreme that glaciers can no longer hang on the shoulders of 9,000-foot towering summits at the Canadian border.

Plus, I wanted to see the vistas. I got about three days of that sandwiched in between the days when fire smoke besmirched the great blue dome and made it impossible to see much of anything beyond a hundred meters. Once again, Mankind had so mucked up the planet that western droughts have become so severe and so prolonged that the states to the west of Montana--Idaho and Washington--were being swept with fires of truly mythic proportions. In fact, the fires in Washington state were truly engorged, one of them having become the largest in the history of Washington (over 400 square miles) while we were there. The smoke from it spread over the west and covered thousands of square miles. Between the rainfall that briefly cleared the skies and the time we left, that cloak of choking smoke covered our escape route from Washington clear down to Missouri. I am not exaggerating. It was that bad. Thank you, petrochemical industries of the western world.

So. My other main reason for hitting Glacier was the wildlife. All of my friends who have visited the Park have impressed upon me the wildlife superlatives of the landscape. They--to a man--had told me that it was the finest that the lower 48 states has to offer. I was ready to see Grizzly bears, mountain goats, Bighorn sheep, Pronghorn antelopes, Black bears, Marmots, Fishers, mountain lions, Golden eagles, Bald eagles, Moose...

I was chomping at the bit to see all of that glorious wildlife.

Alas, it was not to be. Apparently both the drought and the forest fires had combined to chase most of the wildlife high into the mountains. The huckleberry crop was not to be found this year in the lowlands, and so the bears--both species--had fled into the high country to find the sweet berries. Mountainsides that were normally (I was told) swarming with goats and sheep were barren of all movement.

I'm not saying the trip was cursed, but it was cursed.

We did eventually end up seeing some wildlife. The only animals that we saw in abundance were rodents and--eventually--Bighorn sheep. Of bears, we saw two. One adult very high on a mountainside in Many Glacier, and a lone cub grazing some of kind of berry in a big shrub along the Going to the Sun Road. Mountain goats? I never saw one in the Park, but Carole and Andy saw two. The griz never made its appearance, and neither did the majestic moose. One ranger told us of a beaver pond where we could hang out to see a mother moose and calf, but the two never showed. Instead we got the consolation prize of seeing a beaver.

All in all, it was still an impressive trip. Custer State Park in South Dakota delivered the big animals that Glacier did not. Also, the three days of clear skies that we did get in Glacier provided us with jaw-dropping scenery. Just not with much in the way of wildlife.

What this means is that I'll have to go back. Not next year. But maybe in two or three years. Let's hope.

One critter of which there was no shortage was Bighorn sheep. They were pretty much everywhere.

Along the roads...

In the back country...

And even in the parking lot at Logan Pass.

Baby Mountain goat in Custer State Park.

Pronghorn in Custer.

 

All of the bison we saw were in Custer.

Big bull.

Big herd.

We went to a beaver pond to spot moose, but only saw beavers.

Momma grouse on the Iceberg Lake Trail. She had two half-grown chicks.

Jay.

A gorgeous Hoary Marmot on the Highline Trail.

Golden mantled ground squirrel.

One of the dark red squirrels. This was the best shot I could get of one, since they were so active.

We got a huge kick out of watching the Prarie dogs.

This little chipmunk was taking a dust bath.

Another golden mantled ground squirrel.

This was the only adult bear we saw. He was very far away on a big mountain.

This bear cub was crawling around in this shrub eating the heck out of the berries growing on it. I don't know what the shrub is, but he was going to town on those berries!

No Griz!

Well, we have returned home. Very long trip. Longest ever vacation. So much of it spent driving!

I now no longer have to imagine what it's like to witness a cloud of smoke that covers a huge portion of the North American continent. Between the historically enormous fires in Washington state (over 400 square miles) and the ones in Idaho, and the local fires in Montana we saw smoke clouds that spread over thousands and thousands of miles. Upon leaving, we actually drove for two days over three (enormous) western states trying to escape from the smoke. Only on the very eastern edge of South Dakota did we find ourselves free of most of it.

That said, we did have some days without smoke covering the skies. Three days in South Dakota and Wyoming, and roughly two and a half days in Glacier National Park (Montana). Then the fire smoke rolled in and obliterated the views. Most of the wildlife, also, seemed to fade from the landscape. Hiding? It sure seemed so.

We ended up never seeing a single grizzly bear, not one moose, and only two black bears (one of them a cub).

Details as I download the files and collect my thoughts.

Wyoming's Devil's Tower.

B'ars, Part II

Not too long ago I wrote a post about bears and posted some photos of various individual bears I have encountered in my treks. So I thought I'd refresh the subject--briefly--since I am going to be camping and walking about in grizzly bear country in less than a week.

I can't count the total number of bears whose paths I have crossed in my years of wandering about in the forests. Many. Since I've done almost all of my adventuring here in the east coast where only black bears live, that is the species I have most encountered. And even though black bears attack (and sometimes kill) more people than do grizzly bears, it's the griz who get all of the bad publicity.

Yesterday there was a story of a man who was killed and partially devoured by a grizzly bear in  Yellowstone National Park. One part of the story struck me because he was killed in an area that I had very seriously considered hiking when I was in Yellowstone, but ended up not doing because I chose to go elsewhere. It was on a medium-sized mountain called Elephant Back. The trail was relatively easy, I had read, and had the payoff of some good views and some solitude.

There are many more dangerous things that can happen to you in the wilds than running into a Grizzly bear. Lightning strikes are a much more likely threat than meeting up with an irate griz. A bison or a moose will gore or trample you before a grizzly bear would consider doing the same thing to you. Basically, being hurt by any kind of animal while hiking or backpacking is pretty darned rare. I'm far more frightened of being hit by a car or being shot by a nut with a gun than I am of being attacked by a bruin.

Still, I will be hiking in what is likely the densest grizzly bear population in the lower 48 states. So I will carry my bear-strength canister of pepper spray. And I'll be sure to make a lot of noise while I'm in the bush so that I have less of a chance of surprising the big ol' beasties. However, I do not want to get mauled and eaten by a grizzly bear, so I will take all due precautions.

Griz the way I like 'em. Far away from me and not interested in anything but where I'm not. I encountered this one just as I was getting ready to start my hike to the summit of Avalanche Peak in Yellowstone. He saw me and immediately went in the opposite direction. I took this photo from a very great distance.

This confused fellow I surprised while hiking alone in Douthat State Park in the mountains of Virginia. He saw me and bolted. I got this shot (from a good distance) with my telephoto lens because he stopped to take a look back at me to make sure I wasn't going to chase him or shoot at him. He, also, didn't want anything to do with me.

The West

My experience hiking and backpacking out west is limited. I've taken a few trips there to enjoy the outdoors, but not as many as I'd like. The scenery out there is quite different from that here in the east. There's a reason they call it "Big Sky Country". The mountains are grander. The terrain is more rugged. The wildernesses are more vast. When I'm out there I walk around gawking at the grandeur of it all.

But that's not to say that I think it's all superior to what we have here in the east. Our wild areas may be more ancient, more eroded, the edges filed down and enclosed by the creep of urbanization; but there is still much to love and admire in our wilderness. We don't have have the megafauna to compare, but our forests are far more diverse and generally more lush. There's nothing to compare with the autumns of an eastern hardwood landscape.

We have been planning our Glacier National Park trip for an entire year. The day is coming for us to head out. Provisions are stocked. The vehicles are ready. Funds are in place. What reservations we can make have been made. Expectations are at their highest level.

Here we go.

Hiking the big peaks.

Looking into the wilderness of Montana.

A Montana lake.

Grizzly country.

Hiking above treeline on talus slopes.

Bull moose.

Brown phase black bear.