Today I rode out intending to go to the Joyce Kilmer forest in the Slickrock Wilderness, but true to name it was occluded with rain clouds as I approached the Nantahala gorge. So instead I turned West and crossed into Tennessee by Deal’s Gap, more famously known as the Tail of the Dragon. It was a good test for the new bike. I’m sure it is capable of even more, once I have had time to get used to it.
On the Tennessee side it was warm and still much in autumn color.
By the Little Tennessee River.
From Foothills Parkway in the west section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
More from the parkway.
Gatlinburg, to fuel myself and the bike.
Above Newfound Gap.
A good day in the saddle.
I saw two bears today from the back of my motorcycle, and by sunset two bull elk fighting and wrestling with their antlers. I didn’t get pictures because I was riding at both times, but it was lucky even to see them.
ReplyDeleteAmazing.
In the last week or so, walking a friend's dog at dusk, I have seen a deer, several rabbits, and a racoon. Inside the city limits. This is the first time in 40 years I have seen a deer here. Rabbits, several time a year at night.
I see deer very regularly; almost daily, whenever I am out by evening or early morning. Turkey are common here too, and rabbits as well. There's a black bear who lives on the same mountain that I do, but I rarely see him because he is a good neighbor who takes care not to intrude. I, in return, keep the hunters off him by refusing them the right to pass through my land on their hunts.
ReplyDeleteRaccoons I almost never see. Foxes, occasionally. The elk live in the same county, but very rarely make it up this particular mountain. They're fairly easy to see if you go to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park's North Carolina side.
Sounds like a very good day, indeed.
ReplyDeleteWe get lots of deer on the outskirts of the city here. Alas, it seems many people take their annual deer with their cars out on the interstate. We also get possum, skunk, and once I ran into a group of coyotes following a river through town.
regarding the elk- Long ago, I was walking down a river valley on the north slope of the Brooks range, and saw far off on the tundra a odd spot of white. Being curious, I hiked over to see two magnificent caribou racks and skulls, locked in eternal combat.
ReplyDeleteMy wife were out walking, this morning, along a greenbelt that runs a couple hundred yards away from our deep-in-the-city house. A young bobcat--new this year and not that long parted from its mother--trotted across the sidewalk in front of us, maybe 15 feet away, a dead squirrel hanging from its mouth.
ReplyDeleteHe wasn't the least bit worried about us. In this area, humans and the greenbelt critters get along just fine.
Eric Hines
I may be the most urban dweller among us regulars here, (only about a ten minute drive from Downtown L.A. proper barring traffic), but being in any hills makes a huge difference here. When I was a kid (1970s), there were still deer in our backyard. Still many in the foothill communities not far away. There have always been plentiful numbers of coyotes (we have a family that has I think two kits this year in our backyard), possums, skunks, and raccoons (who love our drainage channels for access), all of which I see fairly regularly. Strangely, our particular hills never had rabbits, but this year we saw them in our yard for the first time. Must have been the plentiful rains of the last couple years and the ensuing increase of foliage. Usually the hawks, owls, and coyotes would put too much pressure on rabbits in these parts. This unfortunately also exploded the pocket gopher population, but that was much to the predators benefit. Most of the people around here don't see these things much because they don't spend much time outside, especially at night, when the coyotes in particular own the streets. For all that, I've only ever seen foxes in the local mountains, and quite rarely, and Bobcats only a couple times in more distant ranges in CA.
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