Off Road, Off Trail and Bears in the Trees

Saturday August 11, 2018                                                                Most Recent Posts:
Cades Cove                                                                                      A Trip to North Carolina – Deep Creek
Great Smoky Mountains National Park                                            The Highest Spot in the Park and Andrew’s Bald
Tennessee

After a long drive for a fun day in Deep Creek, my next hike is closer to home.  If it’s Saturday, it’s usually Cades Cove. 

Of course I arrive while the drive through the area is closed to cars.  Usually I walk the road but today I’m going off road.  By foot of course. 

There are a surprising number of trails coming off of the Cades Cove Loop Road.  Most of them seem like backpacking trails to me as one trail leads to another and another and you have to go quite a distance before you can end up back at the road.

I’m going on the Rich Mountain Trail in search of Crooked Arms Cascade.  One of two waterfalls in Cades Cove to which there are trails. 

The Rich Mountain Trail starts off from the very end of the parking at the beginning of the loop road.  

Early on the trail I have a good view out over the fields to the mountains.

Due to the rain, the little creek is overflowing but no problem to cross.

About a half a mile along, the Crooked Arm Trail goes off to the right.  I’m only going up as far as the falls and then will come back to continue on the Rich Montain Trail.

Of course the trail is up hill.

I can see the cascade from the trail but don’t see an easy “social trail” that would take me down to the bottom.  This seems to be as close as I’m going to get so I take this video of the cascade from here.

I walk on along the trail looking for a way to go down. What looks like it might be a trail on the right is actually a stream crossing in a low spot before the trail heads up again.

I walk up a bit looking to see if perhaps there is a trail to the top of the falls.
No luck.

I’m all alone out here and I really want a closer look at the falls so I find a way I think I can go down the steep incline from one pretty good size tree to another despite the undergrowth.

I get a bit of a respite at a spot where nothing grows under what is probably a black walnut tree.  Then it’s back into the thicket.

I turn around and consider what it’s going to be like coming back up this way.  Although for me up is easier than down on steep slopes.

I persevere and am getting closer.

One of “those” selfie photos with a bad phone camera  proves I made it down there.

I thought to take the selfie but not to take a video of the falls and its sounds when I was this close.

I spend a lot of time, take too many pictures and wander around until I find what looks like a much better return path.  Wonder why I couldn’t find this from the top?

Back on the Rich Mountain Trail, I see a black spot ahead.  Bear?  A close up tells me no such luck.

It’s a lovely trail with mushrooms all along the way. Some are fantastic mushrooms and BIG mushrooms!

I’m talking dayglow orange and the size of a dinner plate.

No alterations were made to the color.

Not quite as bright but great fan shapes and colored edges.  Also large.

The Rich Mountain Trail runs right through the John Oliver property.  It goes in from this side, across the lawn, to the right  and back into the woods.  I won’t be continuing on the trail but will cut back down to the road as the trail from this point heads way up hill into some back country.

At the sign, the trail makes a right.  I go straight ahead.

I’ve visited the Oliver Cabin before and pictures of the inside can be found on this previous post on July 21 along with other information on it..

I sit for a spell on what I think was the front porch of the cabin but it’s hard to figure out what was the wagon road to it.  Was it the one I’m facing coming up from the parking area, or the one now coming through the field to the “back” door?

John and Lucretia Oliver moved to Cades Cove in the 1820’s.  Their cabin is one of the oldest structures in the park.  It went through many changes and was still occupied by members of their family into the mid 1930’s.  In the picture below, notice the lack of tall trees, the changes to the cabin and what appears to be a corn field next to it.   

Both of the following pictures are from the information provided at the site by the Park Service.  I love old pictures.

Probably an earlier picture judging from the surroundings and fewer cabin changes

.

 

I leave my tranquil spot on the front porch and walk through the cabin to this view from the back porch.  I’ll be leaving this way.   Clouds are still hanging on the mountains in the distance.

This is a circular turn around common on many farms both then and now.

The dirt lane becomes a mowed one and goes through the field to the Cove Loop road.

I look back to the cabin and notice it seems surrounded by the trees from this distance.  Very different from the 1930’s picture and perhaps more like what it looked like when John and Lucretia lived here.  The clouds are here too.

From there I walk down the road to what I now know are the bears’ favorite cherry trees.
I am not disappointed.  A BIG bear is standing tall high above me along a trunk of a wild cherry tree.

She climbs further up and picks a branch to go out on

From my angle it looks like she’s taken a seat.

Once she’s eaten everything around her, it appears that she has determined the branch she wants is not big enough to bear her weight (no pun intended) and so begins to gnaw at it in order to break the branch and pull it toward her to get at the farthest berries.

I can hear the gnawing.  She pays absolutely no attention to the people gathered around below.

She works very hard on this, eventually cracks the limb most of the way through but it’s apparently too long or too heavy for her to paw it toward her.  I leave her as she continues to work on this plan.

Down on the ground, another bear ambles away from these trees and heads through the field assumedly to find another cherry tree of which there are many lining the edges of the field..

At another tree, a bear mid sized between the first large one and the smaller on on the ground is climbing around near the very top of a cherry tree.  I just don’t see how they can go so high.  One local man tells me he has seen them fall out of the trees.  In this picture the bear is stepping from the trunk on the right to the one on the left.  Reminds me of just how I climbed trees as a kid.

He’s near the top.  I guess all the lower berries have been eaten.

Pretty cute, peaking out, ears up.  I never had the climbing benefit of those claws.

Using the paws to pull the cherries within reach.

If you’ve ever seen wild cherries, they are tiny and mostly seed which is why you see all the seeds in bear scat.  No wonder they do this for days.  Can a bear fill up on such tiny fruits?  Here’s a video of the eating in action.

As in the previous tree, finally it’s time to bring the branch down.  This is a big branch. Looks like he can barely get  his mouth around it.  The park service obviously has no need to prune its cherry trees to keep them healthy.

Time to come down.  Limber enough to do splits.

He sets out to climb up the adjacent limb.  I’ve gotten so caught up in bear watching that the 10:00 opening for cars has come and gone.  Today I’ll be walking back against the traffic but it’s been worth it.  The bears are so much fun to watch. 

On the way these catch my eye on a tree stump.

I take this shot as I head back to my car.  In a car, in a line of cars, just isn’t the way I want to experience Cades Cove.  I prefer my 4 miles and 10,469 steps method.   Looks like the folks on the roadside ahead of me do too.