Snow Memories.

When I was a kid in the deep South of the USA, the most wonderful thing that I would see were the infrequent snowfalls we'd get. So beautiful and fun to play in. But the most depressing thing was to watch it taper until the storm was over, melting until it was all just a memory.

Currently it's snowing. Just light snow showers. But we only get to see this kind of thing but rarely. It did snow briefly last week, no accumulation. And it's snowing now but the last I heard we're not supposed to get any accumulation. Winter is fading fast and will be over soon. I'd be surprised if we get any snowstorm that leaves any accumulation this season, but I suppose it could happen.

If I didn't have my part-time job tomorrow I'd head up to the mountains where the high country is supposed to get several inches of snow. One more reason, I think, to get rid of the part-time job. I've cut it back to two days a week. Maybe zero would be best. Life is, after all, quite short.

Blackwater Falls in a snowstorm.

Deer in Cades Cove, February of 2014.

Two deer in the snow at Blackwater Falls State Park, WV.

Me, on the Alum Cave Bluffs Trail near the summit of Mount LeConte in March 0f 2005.

Same trail, no people.

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.

Deer

Once again...too exhausted to write. I'm trying to get a day off for rest. We'll see.

White-tailed deer are actually not common in and around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. One of the few places in the Park where you can generally see them is Cades Cove. Here was part of a herd that were out in a meadow moving snow to get to the grass.

Coyote!

We just returned from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Park has pretty much been buried in snow for weeks. They kept having to shut down most of the roads in the Park which kept me maddeningly away from all of the trailheads I wanted to use. So I got almost no hiking done, at all, and didn't get to hike to any of the spots I'd picked out to strike off my to-do list. Alas.

But here are a few shots I took in the Park. I'll post details tomorrow when I return from work.

Not all of the Park is about the natural beauty. Some of it is devoted to the European presence in the area. This is Cable Mill in Cades Cove, a still operating grist mill.

While I had to have seen this waterfall before, I don't recall it. It's visible from the Little River Road on the way to Cades Cove. Not a bad waterfall. Maybe fifteen feet in height.

Carole and I at the Park entrance sign (the Gatlinburg entrance).

This was a coyote I saw in Cades Cove. When I showed the photos that I took of him to a ranger at Cable Mill, he told me that the coyotes had interbred with the Red wolves that the Park Service tried to reintroduce to the ecosystem some years back. Initially, he said, there were a number of coyotes that had a lot of Red wolf genetics in them, but that they'd mostly been bred out. He said that this individual was the last one in the pack there that looks like a Red wolf. (And, yes, I acknowledge that a lot of my learned friends argue persuasively that coyotes and Red wolves are actually the same animal. I don't feel that way, but concede that they may be correct.)

Cades Cove on a warm day in the deep snow.

Cades Cove Whitetail

I took these photos over eight years ago. Sometimes you get lucky and are in the right place at the right time. Carole and I were in Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We saw this Whitetail buck come out of the forest and begin walking across a grassy field. I took the photos with my very first digital camera which was not very good by modern standards, but it remains one of my favorite cameras. I took some good shots with it.

The rack on this buck was not huge, but it seemed almost perfectly symmetrical to us. Man, I would loved to have had a better camera with a good lens. Compared to other places where we camp and hike, we don't see many deer in the Smokies. So it was exciting to see this healthy animal walking across the field.

I need to get back to the Smokies. We haven't been in over a year.