We slept in later than usual at our Marriott hotel room and quickly checked out and headed across the street to the Hampton Inn, our preferred choice for continental breakfast. The plan was a half day, a short day, maybe fifty miles or so to the Great Smokey Mountains, maybe we can find a spot to camp at the top we thought. Little did we know this national park was like nothing we’ve ever seen before. According to the park ranger over 40,000 people visit this park per day, today was a busy day. Cars swarmed like bees around a bee hive and the gapers driving them had the habit of honking for no apparent reason. We rode into the visitors center around 3:30pm. A 3,700 foot climb awaited us and we headed out into the traffic jam that was the national park.
Along the climb we spotted a black bear about 50 feet off of the road. Chaos ensued when I pulled over to try to take a picture. We soon found ourselves in a similar situation to the one we experienced in Yellowstone. We were surrounded, not by bison this time but cars. They pulled in every direction blocking the road and asking frantically, ‘where is it? What did you see?’
Aside from the outrages number of people in the park the climb was beautiful. We rode hard and fast, wanting to leave the mountains with a bang. Near the top the traffic finally started to die down and we road up into the clouds. By now it was dark, so we bundled up and descended by the light of a full moon 15 miles to camp.
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