Home alone, unemployed for the weekend, and not feeling much like bike racing, I grabbed my always-ready backpack, loaded the dogs in the car and headed to the mountains. The weather was perfect so we parked at Unicoi Gap and started climbing up and over Blue Mountain. The trail starts off right up the mountain gaining about 1000 feet elevation in less than a mile. After a couple of miles of hiking we pitched our tent at the site of the former Rocky Knob shelter.
This morning we packed up the tent and hiked a couple of miles West to Chattahoochee Gap (the spring on the side trail is headwaters of Chattahoochee River) and made a short visit up to Jacks Gap, then turned around and headed back about 6 miles to the parked car.
There is a section on this part of the trail that is very steep and rocky and looks almost "prehistoric" to me. There are huge rocks, large fallen cypress trees and ferns as far as you can see.
As we reached the top of Blue Mountain on the return hike we came face to face with the biggest Black Bear I've ever seen. Apparently we have gotten better at our stealthy "Indian walk" and we stopped about 20 feet away from where the bear was standing on the trail. A couple seconds passed before it realized we were there and then it disappeared into the trees. I was amazed at how fast and agile a creature that big can be.
Sorry, the digital camera went on a trip this weekend with Bev to visit family in KY, and I didn't bring along my sketch book so there no images to document this spontaneous adventure.