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The Wild Life

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    • The Wild Life

      I'll start. This is a twofer. It was May 17 of last year and I was doing a 30 mile section in the SNP from Loft Mtn to Rockfish gap. I had just past Blackrock and crossed the parkway going south. I kept hearing something rustling, but I thought it was my pass rubbing around on my pack. I stop and hear it again. then about 30 ft to my left not 1, not 2, but 3 bear cubs run right by me. Where is momma? I turn and look ahead and there she is about 50 ft away standing on her hind legs and huffing. Holy crap. So I do my usual yelling and clapping my hands but she only moves just off the trail and crouches. We have a 5 minute stand off. I do a right turn and cross country over to the parkway and road walk for 200 yards and then rejoin the trail.
      I stop at Blackrock Hut for dinner and socialize for a while and head on. I go a mile or so and see several great stealth spots about 100 ft off the trail. I sent up, do my hang, do my journal and settle. Not long after dark I hear something big moving through the woods and breaking sticks and it's over by my hang. Crap did the bear family follow me? It's a moonless night and ink black. i strap on my headlight and climb out to have a look. There right under my hang a 100 ft or so away a pair of eyes bobbing up and down and then it snorts at me. I grab one of the rocks I've conveniently stockpiled for just such time and heave one over at it. it moves off. I get back inside. it comes back , I move a little closer and see it is a buck snorting at me. I heave another rock at it and it goes away. Then it comes back with two doe. I have the buck 30 ft behind my tarp pawing the ground and snorting like a bull, the does 30 ft in front of my tent. I was surrounded, it was weird. I threw a stick at the buck he just snorted. I walked up to one of the does close enough that I could have hit her with the stick I held, but didn't. I walked back to the buck and told him if he would stop snorting at me I would stop throwing stuff. I crawled back under my quilt put my ear plugs in and took a benedryl. The snorting stopped. But it turned into sniffing. They walked right up to my tent and sniffed all around just like dogs. I told them "I'm a hiker, I'm supposed to stink". They eventually stopped sniffing and started munching on the blueberry bushes that I was camped in the middle of. I finally dozed off. Apparently I had camped in their midnight snack area. I'll take a deer encounter over a bear encounter any day.



      momma bbear is off to the left and crouched



      The blueberry patch
      "Dazed and Confused"
      Recycle, re-use, re-purpose
      Plant a tree
      Take a kid hiking
      Make a difference

    • The Wild Life

      I was walking the AT along the side of a mountain, maybe in Virginia, when I saw a coyote coming up the mountain. It took a diagonal path that would have intersected my own. I was feeling somewhat tired, so I just stopped, faced it, and said hello. That made it take off. Then I started looking for a good stick for self defense. I am glad it was just one, and easily bluffed.
      I am human and I need to be loved - just like everybody else does

    • The Wild Life

      I also encountered a mother bear with cubs (2) in SNP. It was in 2012. I sang loudly to let the bears know I was there. They were in no hurry to leave the trail, so I bush-wacked out to Skyline Drive. Later I completed that section in the other direction. I was very alert the second time passing through that area.

      I saw deer pass close to the Lamberts Meadow shelter. I saw one close to a shelter south of Clingmans Dome. I saw one in SNP that just stared at me as I walked by, only 10 feet away.
      I am human and I need to be loved - just like everybody else does

    • The Wild Life

      i was eating lunch in harriman state park, sitting on a boulder overlooking the trail from around 10 feet.my eye catches some motion and i see what looks like a large dog, maybe 80 yards up the trail slowly walking towards me and as it gets closer i see its not a dog but a bear, female. i'm eating a tuna fish sandwich and i think omg i must stink like tuna, and then laughing that black bears very rarely get to do any deep sea fishing. so i stand up on top of the boulder , waving my hands over my head and yell at her, and she keeps just walking towards me. as she approached i calmly asked her if she was interested in my tuna sandwich . she did not respond. she continued her walk down the trail, paying me no never mind.
      its all good

    • The Wild Life

      I saw one turtle on the AT, one on a side trail in SNP, and one in the middle of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I moved the last one off the road. Maybe it wanted sunlight and warm blacktop, but I did not want a repeat of the turtle I tried to photograph in Wisconsin. All I got was a picture of turtle remains after it was run over by a bus.

      I saw a large rat in the shelter south of Hampton, TN, and plenty of mice in other shelters. I even saw one northbound AT hiker try to scare them off with firecrackers, at the shelter north of Jacob's Ladder. No, it does not work. I suggested he not set firecrackers off near Fontana Dam.
      I am human and I need to be loved - just like everybody else does

    • Re:Re: The Wild Life

      stoviewander wrote:

      I also encountered a mother bear with cubs (2) in SNP. It was in 2012. I sang loudly to let the bears know I was there. They were in no hurry to leave the trail, so I bush-wacked out to Skyline Drive. Later I completed that section in the other direction. I was very alert the second time passing through that area.

      I saw deer pass close to the Lamberts Meadow shelter. I saw one close to a shelter south of Clingmans Dome. I saw one in SNP that just stared at me as I walked by, only 10 feet away.


      I hike alot in the SNP and it's side trails and I can tell you it is bear central and the deer are fearless. More stories to tell later.
      "Dazed and Confused"
      Recycle, re-use, re-purpose
      Plant a tree
      Take a kid hiking
      Make a difference

    • Re:Re: Re:The Wild Life

      hikerboy wrote:

      BirdBrain wrote:

      Rasty wrote:

      Had three goats sleep beside my tent in Uwharrie national forest on the Uwharrie trail. They left just before it got light the next morning.


      There he goes again making old man jokes.

      i have never been to uwharrie national forest


      Reminds me of Harriman.
      Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
      Dr. Seuss Cof123

    • The Wild Life

      stoviewander wrote:

      I saw one turtle on the AT, one on a side trail in SNP, and one in the middle of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I moved the last one off the road. Maybe it wanted sunlight and warm blacktop, but I did not want a repeat of the turtle I tried to photograph in Wisconsin. All I got was a picture of turtle remains after it was run over by a bus.

      I saw a large rat in the shelter south of Hampton, TN, and plenty of mice in other shelters. I even saw one northbound AT hiker try to scare them off with firecrackers, at the shelter north of Jacob's Ladder. No, it does not work. I suggested he not set firecrackers off near Fontana Dam.


      On one afternoon stroll on the Mohawk-Hudson Bike Path somewhere between Schenectady and Latham, I got to see a turtle with her hindquarters in a hole in the ground, laying her eggs. Several passersby thought I was weird to point it out. But how often do you get to see such a thing?

      That was a great day for seeing wildlife. I got to watch a bunch of herons and cormorants, and a pair of bald eagles, all fishing, each in its own way, Some huge muskellunge were spawning in the shallows. And a couple of muskrat were dabbling in the mud, doing ... whatever it is that muskrat do when they're dabbling in the mud.
      I'm not lost. I know where I am. I'm right here.

    • The Wild Life

      Probably my most exotic wildlife sighting was on a day hike in Hawaii about 30 years ago. On Maui in Haleakala NP. We were hiking a trail goes from the road for couple of miles until it reaches a gap in the crater rim. At this point you can look down a thousand feet to the crater floor below you. To your left, you can look down 7000 feet to the ocean below. Warm moist air from the ocean was rising and forming clouds and then pouring into the gap into the crater right at your feet. The view was amazing. Then I heard an odd sound and looked down to see I was standing in the middle of a flock of 12 Nene (Hawaiian geese), one not 12 inches from my left foot. Having evolved on an island with no predators, they don't run away when you walk up to them. We had seen a display about the Nene at the NP Visitors Center, but the park ranger said our chance of seeing one was slim as they were almost extinct. I did a quick calculation to determine that I was surrounded by about 5% of the world's wild Nene population.

    • The Wild Life

      I was sitting on the porch at Dave's Place (Damascus, VA) and a carpenter bee was dumping sawdust on me. I also saw them at shelters and along the trail in Virginia. I thought they were bumblebees until someone pointed out the differences.

      I was sitting in a shelter in Virginia. I turned around and saw two black snakes poking their heads through the gap between the back wall and the roof.

      I have seen hummingbirds in Virginia, in SNP and north of SNP.

      The whippoorwills at Punchbowl shelter in Virginia along the BRP were particularly noisy. I have also frequently heard owls at shelters.

      There is a man-made pond north of Hot Springs where the frogs make noise. I have seen small one inch frogs in GSMNP.

      I have seen small orange newts on the southern AT. One was just south of Hot Springs.

      I saw a snail while descending north of the Priest.

      I saw about 6 black bears in SNP, none in GSMNP, and a little one in Georgia.
      I am human and I need to be loved - just like everybody else does

    • Re:The Wild Life

      One of the most amazing things I've seen is a synchronized firefly show. I was staying at Walnut Bottoms and couldn't sleep. I looked out the tent window and the whole area was filled with fireflies flashing on and off in unison. People pay money, and stand in line for hours, to see that in the GSMNP.

      I've seen quite a few bears.

      I've only seen one snake. It was in the middle of the trail. I nudged it with my pole and it didn't move. I nudged it again and it didn't move. When I started to go around it, it moved and scared me to death. It was tiny.

      I really don't want to encounter hogs.
      Lost in the right direction.

    • Re:Re: Re:The Wild Life

      TrafficJam wrote:

      One of the most amazing things I've seen is a synchronized firefly show. I was staying at Walnut Bottoms and couldn't sleep. I looked out the tent window and the whole area was filled with fireflies flashing on and off in unison. People pay money, and stand in line for hours, to see that in the GSMNP.

      I've seen quite a few bears.

      I've only seen one snake. It was in the middle of the trail. I nudged it with my pole and it didn't move. I nudged it again and it didn't move. When I started to go around it, it moved and scared me to death. It was tiny.

      I really don't want to encounter hogs.


      I almost stepped on a huge timber rattlesnake on the lake shore trail in gsmnp two years ago. It didn't move. I jumped back and screamed like a little girl.
      Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
      Dr. Seuss Cof123

    • The Wild Life

      West Hills County Park, a local, suburban park that my wife and I walk in has seen an increase of wild life. For about the last 18 months we've been seeing a few Fox. Then the other evening my wife saw a deer there for the first time. She wouldn't even have noticed it except for the fact that our dog, Tora, got real interested and was tuggin the leash. Kathy looked up to see the white patch of the deer disappearing into the woods.

    • Re:Re: The Wild Life

      odd man out wrote:

      stoviewander wrote:

      I have seen hummingbirds in Virginia, in SNP and north of SNP.


      We saw hummingbirds on Sentinal Dome, Yosemite (near glacier point)

      Were at Big Meadows SNP at dusk and there was about a bazillion deer.


      We camped at Big Meadows and one night when i got up to go to the restroom there were like 15 deer grazing the grass around the building . I walked right between them and they paid me no mind. They are fearless in the park. I have a picture of one almost sticking its head in my car window .
      "Dazed and Confused"
      Recycle, re-use, re-purpose
      Plant a tree
      Take a kid hiking
      Make a difference

    • The Wild Life

      I've seen all the usual (bear, coyotes, deer, etc) with nothing interesting to tell. However, last summer my husband and I went home (Northeast Georgia) for a week during the summer and took one his guys from work with us. The poor kid (I think he's 20 or maybe 21 now) is from Iowa, so he had never been rock climbing, hiking where there were more than small hills, kayaking, etc. Most of the week was a washout because it rained the whole time but we decided we would take him to the Panther Creek Trail for a nice 10ish mile round trip walk in the rain. On our way out we were walking single file with my husband in front, then the friend with me bringing up the rear. All of the sudden the guy just jumped in a cartoonish air brakes kind of way what looked like 10 vertical feet and hung there. It took him a few seconds to get the word SNAKE out of his mouth. My husband and I started looking for a rattle snake or something worthy of the reaction. What I finally found was a little bitty, maybe eight inch long rat snake that was arching backwards as far as it could to get away from the guy who almost crushed it. Being the sympathetic people we are, we laughed at him....a lot. Suddenly, he needed to get home to Iowa much sooner than originally anticipated and left after we got out of the woods. ;)
      “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” - T. S. Eliot

    • The Wild Life

      LIhikers wrote:

      Here's a photo from one of the two moose encounters Kathy and I have had, both in New Hampshire. The other one happened to quick for me to get a good photo. This moose was hanging around Madison Spring hut..........

      [IMG:http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c400/lihikers/hiking/2011%20Presidential%20Mountains%20traverse/NH2011086.jpg]

      im pretty sure its the same moose.i recognize those big brown bedroom eyes.
      my shot was taken august 2011
      its all good