Such an exciting time has been had since last time that it’s hard to fit it all in, with much action aplenty - including getting pursued by a large black bear in the Great Smoky Mountains…

After the debacle of Ducks Unlimited last time, we decided to hit the Great Smoky Mountains to see the wonder and beauty of nature at it’s finest. Alas, people decided that what was really needed at the base of this natural beauty was a town of abnormally high levels of tackiness. Think of the most tacky place you can imagine, then think even more tacky and awful. That’s Pigeon Forge.

We stopped for directions at an office called the “Official Tourism Centre” but it turned out to be a front for a place selling timeshare accommodation. I was about to leave when they asked me whether I wanted to listen to their presentation and receive US$50.00 in cash. I thought that sounded alright, but still said we were not interested and then they upped the offer to US$60.00 instead. With the exchange rate so bad, free cash was not too hard to take, so we signed up to go and have a look.

The presentation was kind of interesting, but of course we did not buy anything. The deal was really good for us though, because we were about to do international travelling and the deal suited that (on the grounds that most Americans won’t go overseas that much). With the cash, we splurged and got a room in town at the Riverside Towers. Overlooking the National Park, with the skyline dominated with a beautiful snow-capped peak - something we enjoyed from our seats in the in-room jacuzzi! Let’s hear it for suckers who think we’re going to buy timeshare - our accommodation was all paid for through the timeshare people. A king-size bed and jacuzzi was wonderful after so many nights in the van.

The next day we hiked up to Rainbow Falls. We had wasted a fair chunk of the day just messing about in Pigeon Forge, then decided we’d had enough and a walk in the woods was a good idea. We quickly checked our options and decided to go to a waterfall that was described as ‘moderate, 3 miles’, but since it was 3pm, we checked with the rangers first. “Just looking for a bit of a hike. Can we make it to this waterfall by dark?” we asked. “No problems”, we were told. This was a response that would come back to haunt us later.

Off we went and began walking up the rocky trail to the falls. It didn’t take us that long to find them and admire them, but the light was fading fast, because we’d forgotten to allow for the side of the mountain we were now on blocking the sun earlier than anticipated. The rangers were right - we’d made it to the falls by dark. We just had not thought to ask “could we make it back?”…

We hastily made our way back down the trail, as fast as we could go in the ever-increasing gloom, but eventually the light faded entirely. I got out a small torch I usually carried and found that it had turned on inside my daypack and thus the batteries were nearly all used up. Still, in the absence of light, even a dim light was better than nothing. The moon had not come up, and even if it did, we were on the wrong side of the mountain for it to provide light now, so it would not have helped.

To make things more interesting, Di has a vision defect where she can barely see at times of low contrast, which of course was now. I, on the other hand, don’t have such a problem, but since I was helping her down the mountain as much as I could, we moved slowly. So, there we were, gingerly making our way down a very dark trail in the Smoky Mountains, trying to not trip on the myriad of tennis-ball and smaller sized rocks that were strewn all over the trail and gave you quite a start as you stepped on one and it rolled out from under your foot. We were not panicked, but it was tough going. It was then that I noticed we were not alone on the trail…

About 100 yards back, I could make out some sort of dark shape, lumbering down the path as well. I hoped beyond hope it was a deer, but I could see enough in the gloom to see that it was not. My guts froze as I realised it was a black bear. I knew we were still a long way from the end of the trail, but figured it was better to keep moving rather than sit there. I got Di up and moving again but didn’t tell her why there was a sudden insistent step in my stride. It did not take long though, and she knew something was odd from the way I kept looking behind us.

We kept moving as fast as we could go, and the bear kept following, sometimes getting to within 50 yards, other times dropping back to about 100 yards. For the next 20 minutes, we crashed our way down the mountain, all the time getting more and more panicked. Di twisted her ankle on a rock rather badly, and I then almost dragged her hysterically down the hill rather than let her stop as we would otherwise have done.

We finally got to the end of the trail and touched the paved carpark. Alas, we’d parked at the other end of the carpark since the place was full when we’d arrived. In hindsight, we did the stupidest thing possible - we ran. You have to understand that we Aussies are not used to large dangerous mammals. We don’t know the rules on what to do. It was not until a couple of months later when we were talking to a ranger that we realised bears have a natural instinct to pursue running animals. We hit the van at top speed, even Di with her twisted ankle, now swollen and bruised terribly, threw it into gear and accelerated wildly down the road.

Fortunately for us, it seems that the bear was not interested in an Australian-flavoured snack, and it did not follow us out of the woods. It was probably just ambling down the trail to a watercourse when it saw us ahead. Rather than wanting to eat us, it probably was just irked it had to follow us down the hill because we were ahead of it. Thus, every time we sped up, it could go faster too. Still, in the absence of this knowledge, it seemed to us we were about to become bear-snacks, which was a terrifying proposition at the time.

The most valuable lesson we took from it all - when we went into other national parks and were unsure of the terrain, making sure we asked park rangers if we could make it to a specific feature AND BACK before dark…

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001