Then a tougher 11 mile hike to Gregory Bald with more bears, owls, and azaleas.
1 My next stop was the Gregory Ridge trail up to Gregory Bald.
2 There were butterflies everywhere as I approached the trailhead.
3 Typical Smoky Mountains trail... gorgeous cascades and bright green foliage.
4 And blooming rhodondendrons.
5 Even though it hadn't rained in a couple days, there was water running down trail and everything was still wet and muddy.
6 Beautiful woods along the entire trail.
7 And bizarre mushrooms.
8 I love the old, weathered trail signs here.
9 Made it to Gregory Bald at 4,949', one of the higher peaks in the Smokies.
10 Great views of Cades Cove below.
11 Another summit view.
12 Gregory Bald is famous for its fields of Azalea. One of my favorite flowers, I've never seen them in the wild. I evidently just missed the peak blooming season, but there were still several bushes with amazing colors. The summit is about half covered with dense clusters of these bushes.
13 The only trees growing on the summit. The Smokies have many of these "balds", which are peaks where the forest doesn't grow. It's just an open meadow on top of an otherwise densely forested mountain.
14 This rabbit let me get really close.
15 On the way back down, I had another fairly close bear encounter where it made the same aggresive "humph" and did a fake charge. It was probably mama bear to these two cubs I came across shortly thereafter. They just stared at me curiously.
16 I also came across a giant owl. Must have been 2 feel tall, and it made a pretty bizarre noise. It's a little eery when it stares at you.
17 One last cascades view as I finish my first day in the Smokies.
