Our first stop was at the Dickey Ridge area, where we strolled along the 2-kilometer Fox Hollow Trail past the remnants of old homesteads and a cemetery. I'd pulled up with a sore shoulder after either our Mount Le Conte hike or cycling through Cades Cove, so we wore our backpacks just to see how I'd manage. We may have looked like idiots, but the pack felt great and we were excited about the rest of the day.
The next stop was Mathews Arm campground, from where we decided to tackle the 8-kilometer Knob Mountain circuit.
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| The big loop on the left |
After a short stretch on a fire road, we turned onto Knob Mountain Trail proper. The area was forested and the trail was cool and shady. We passed a handful of other hikers, but otherwise the trail was quiet. Maybe a mile or two down the trail Daniel, who was plodding along in front of me, paused, took a step backwards and threw his arm out to stop me from continuing on. "There's a bear" he whispered (I may have left out the expletive). Some 40 to 50 meters ahead of us, plodding along the trail was a large black bear. We'd been talking and clapping, hooting and hollering as we walked, so he definitely knew we were around. After watching him for maybe 5 seconds, he lackadaisically sauntered off the side of the trail and disappeared. It was all very civilised, and this is what I meant when I said they're not usually aggressive, at least if they know you're there and you're not too close. It was the perfect bear encounter for hikers, and we were stoked.
The only problem was that he'd disappeared out of our line of sight, and we didn't know where or how far he'd gone. Turning back seemed the safest option. Soon enough a couple of hikers came through from the other direction. We waved and yelled to let them know we'd just seen a bear near where they were walking, and they just looked at us like we were a couple of crazy skips who'd never been in this part of the woods before. Fair enough. Continuing on, we came across another couple. "Keep an eye out" I said, "we've just seen a bear on the trail maybe a mile up". The male hiker let out a hearty laugh and replied, "well now you've seen three bears, because our surname is Bear." It's always nice to meet an American with a sense of humour.
We kept going, pausing only to share a bagel and cream cheese for lunch. The loop covers multiple trails including a mile or so on the Appalachian Trail, which runs for 3500 kilometers from Georgia to Maine. I read Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods a couple of years back - despite hiking the trail in its entirety, he didn't see one bear.
Walking, walking, walking, we knew we were getting close to the Elkwallow trail head when I spotted something moving in the bushes ahead of us and stopped. The trail curved to the side to go around a rise, and on that rise, through the trees and shrubs, I could see a bear. "It's small, looks like a cub" I said to Daniel, who replied "Nah, it's big, definitely adult". We were looking through different parts of the thicket, and he was watching Mama Bear. I don't know how close we were at this point, but it was a safe distance. Due to our being deliberately noisy as always, they were aware of us and kept turning back to check us out. After a minute or so we could see them politely wandering away - it looked as though they were heading off to the side, down the opposite slope of the rise.
We kept talking so they could hear us, before deciding to press on after a few minutes of loitering. The trail curved around to a stone staircase, and there was much less visibility than desired. However, based on our earlier encounter, we assumed all would be honky dory. In slow motion we walked up the steps, talking the whole while. At the top of the stairs and a few steps onto the trail we let out a sigh of relief, only a second before catching sight of Mama Bear and cub looking down at us from a tree, MUCH too close for comfort. After staring at each other momentarily, dumbfounded, Mama Bear started scrambling down the tree, presumably at us. I think we may have actually discovered the elusive drop bear? We backed out of there pretty darn quick, still talking so she could hear us getting further away.
All of this, and I didn't get one decent photograph. I only managed to capture a couple of black shapes through the trees, and a very blurred shot which I think shows the beginnings of Mama Bear's descent from the tree. However, I assure you that the memories are forever imprinted in both our minds and our underpants.
At this point we were far from cool, calm and collected as we had been originally. Our nervous systems had gone haywire, and we still had to get the hell out of the woods somehow. Mama Bear was too mad for us to consider trying to go forwards again, and there were no other hikers around, so we started to double back. Every squirrel, every spider web made us jump. To make things worse, we were acutely aware that by this time it was bear o-clock (late afternoon, early evening), and we had no idea how long it was going to take us to find a safe route out. I suppose this is exactly why you're always told to pack extra water, food and clothing.
Earlier we'd passed a parking lot next to where the Appalachian Trial crosses Elkwallow Trail. Worse case scenario, we could hike all the way back to there, probably two miles from where we'd been forced to turn around. But of course we were now going the wrong direction, and the further we went, the further we'd have to double back again. Eventually the trail got close enough to the road for us to scramble up a rocky bank and edge out onto the roadside.
We relaxed a little then and started to trudge back towards where our car was parked. I seriously considered trying to hitch a lift, and if a ranger had driven past, I would have. Walking along the roadside isn't much fun either - the road is windy and the cars drive quicker than they should. Most of the bends had small stone retaining walls that we stepped onto and used to keep our distance from the cars. We kept making as much noise as our dwindling energy stores allowed - after all, we'd seen two bears on the roadside in Glacier National Park.
Maybe halfway along the road, while walking along one of those walls, I turned my head toward to the forest and found myself face to face, at eye level, with a baby bear up a tree. Remember those little koala toys that had bendy limbs you could wrap around your finger? He was just hanging there, exactly like that. All I could think was "where's Mum" and I flew off the stone wall and into the road. Luckily there wasn't a car coming. He wasn't particularly impressed either, and as soon as we'd made eye contact he scampered straight back down that tree as if it were a fireman's pole.
This was getting beyond a joke, and we just had nothing left in us. When we finally reached our car we didn't know whether to laugh or cry in relief. We kicked off our shoes and scoffed down some food. We hadn't eaten nearly enough. The eight kilometers had unwittingly turned into more than sixteen.
As you can see above, Daniel had actually been tracking the hike on Strava, a GPS application. This shows you exactly how close we were to the trailhead when we ran into Mama Bear and her cub. Should we just have waited longer and tried to push through? I don't know. Nor do I know if we'll be hiking tomorrow.
I waited until we were safely in the car and on our way before I bashfully confessed to Daniel that this had all been my fault. You see, after the first bear on the trail, I'd spent some time quietly musing to myself that there were only two things we were yet to see. Yep, you guessed it. Bear cubs and bears in trees. My bad.
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