When we arrived, we made a pass through the campground, looking for a good spot to camp. The first thing that we noticed is that the campground was much more crowded than I anticipated. By the end of the day, there were only a handful of spaces left unoccupied. We made our first pass and decided to head back to a specific camp near the entrance to the camp that was in the "no generator" zone. As we approached our camp, I noticed that a woman was standing outside here tent taking a picture. Nothing unusual about that, but in this case she was taking a picture of the woods behind her tent. Not really seeing anything worthwhile regarding subject matter in a bunch of trees, my gaze lingered a little bit to see if there was anything that might draw her attention. As soon as I say the object of here attention, I told Ron to immediately back up because what I had seen left little doubt that we were not in Kansas anymore. Ron backed up and we all were greeted with the sight of a lumbering black bear walking along the edge of the campground in the woods. The lady camper was calmly taking a picture of the visitor, and the bear wasn't any more than 50 feet away from her. She didn't appear nervous, and we were in the relative safety of the truck, so we moved on. Ron dropped everyone off at the camp site and went back to the Ranger Station to reserve site A31. I stayed behind with the three boys to make sure that no one poached our site. As you would expect, the boys were somewhat apprehensive that we may encounter the bear again, but I assured them that the bear would remain outside the camp and wouldn't enter the camp with so many people around. After some time waiting for Ron to reappear, Jack and I made the short walk to a point where we could determine if the bear was still around. We didn't see anything and Ron passed us on his return to the campsite. We were unloading the truck when two Rangers in a golf cart stopped near us. Thinking that they wanted to speak to us, we stopped unloading gear and looked in their direction. They ignored us and continued to stare into the woods directly across the road. We followed their gaze and there was our friend the bear walking through the woods, but clearly inside the campground. To make matters worse, he had crossed the road into the campsite directly where Jack and I had stood not five minutes beforehand. The Rangers elected to leave him alone and since he was walking away from us, we continued to unpack. We never saw him again, and it only occurred to me after the fact that I should have taken a picture of him. Opportunity lost.
Once we made camp, we flagged down the Rangers and got directions to the Overall Run Falls, a destination that we had selected the day before. It promised to be a 2-mile hike. When we informed the Rangers of our destination, he took a look at Jack and told us that the trail was "a little steep". We thanked him headed out. When we entered the trail and began walking, we noted both the downhill path and the haggard looks on the campers headed towards us. This becomes important later. About a half-mile into the hike, we ran across a Father/Daughter pair who told us that they had seen a very large rattlesnake next to the trail and to proceed with caution because it might have remained. We proceeded in single file making sure that Ron or myself always had the kids between us. About 100 feet later, we heard the snake's rattle and froze. Personally I had never heard this sound, but I had little trouble identifying it. The rattle was much higher pitched that I would have guessed, but it was very clear what the source was. We followed the sound and mere inches off the trail and no more than five feet away was a rattlesnake. "Very large" proved to be an understatement because I found myself looking at the largest snake I have ever seen in the wild. Size is one thing, but realizing that a poisonous snake is spitting distance away from you and you are too far away to make it safely back to camp should you get bit makes your heart rate increase. We stood our ground, but it stood it's ground as well. It coiled atop a log and faced us, watching our every move, and we couldn't get it to budge by throwing rocks at it. I had my trusty Nikon with me, so I managed to snap a few shots of the reptile during the standoff. Click on the picture to blow it up, it's worth it. You can see the rattle and that he is extremely interested in me.
Finally, Ron picked up Jack and carefully walked by. He watched, but didn't do anything. Austin crossed next, followed by Trey and myself. After we walked by, the snake decided to leave, whereupon I managed another shot of him.
Neither of these pictures gives any indication of how big he was. We took care to warn all approaching campers that he was there, but we never saw him again. Along the remainder of the hike, we were warned of two additional rattler sightings, but we had no further encounters.
Back to the hike, the trail very noticeable continued downhill, for the next 90 minutes! When we approached the waterfall, the trail was literally stairs cut into the side of the mountain. We did make it to the waterfall and it proved to be underwhelming. While there, we were treated to some spectacular landscapes. We were also treated to a hawk sighting.
Once we saw the waterfall, we began the slow trek back to camp. Astute readers will quickly realize that if your hike was downhill for the first half, your return trip is going to be uphill. This fact was not lost on us as we struggled uphill and everyone's eagerness to be hiking rapidly dissipated. We saw far more people on the trails than I would have expected, but perhaps we should have anticipated this since the campground was essentially full. The following picture was taken on the return trip and you can clearly see the signpost directing you to the Appalachian Trail behind the boys.
Having had our fill of hiking, we returned to camp. We got our fire going and had hot dogs and smores for dinner. As we were preparing to bed down, I noticed something walking through our campsite and a flashlight revealed a small deer parading through. That night, we could clearly hear several deer walking very close to the tent. As many times as I have been camping, I have never heard that many animals outside of the tent at night. All I was listening for were telltale bear grunts.
I would be lying if I said that was the best night's sleep I have had, but these old bones are too used to a mattress. After we got up, we quickly decamped and headed home. We drove along the mountain and stopped at several overlooks. Sample shot:
All in all, a cool trip, a very good idea from Ron, and we managed to see a few things we don't see in the 'Burbs.
