Smoky Mountains Cabin Trip - Day 7 - Tuesday, May 18, 2021

We had plans to catch the sunrise over Gatlinburg and drive Cades Cove before it got too busy and so we got an early start and were packed up and on the road a little after 6:00 a.m.  It was a bit sad to leave such a beautiful cabin, but our time in the Smokies was coming to an end.

We briefly stopped at the Gatlinburg overlook although it was too cloudy to see much of a sunrise.  The views still were worth the stop.

We continued on towards Cades Cove and passed an overlook with this view.

Before we even reached the Cades Cove loop, we had two bear encounters.  First a Mom and two cubs were right off the side of the road.  We couldn't stop long enough to take photos of that family but not much further, this bear walked across the road.  We obviously had to stop for him.  It all happened so quickly that my photos are a bit blurry but I thought I would share them anyways because it was such an amazing experience.

Fortunately, there was very little traffic in Cades Cove so we could take our time and pull off wherever we wanted.  We counted at least 8 bears, including the four we saw before entering the loop.  We also saw a small deer.  And a pileated woodpecker briefly paused on a tree right off the trail.  We pulled over and I tried to follow the huge woodpecker into the woods but lost track of it so never got a photo.

Black bear along the tree line with a cub (you can't really see the cub in this photo).  These bears were quite a ways off and in the shade and so I couldn't get a very good photo of them.

This one was only about 50 yards off the road and seemed completely oblivious to all the people with cameras.

Same one as the previous two photos - At one point he was startled by a loud truck and jumped up on the tree.  I wasn't quick enough to catch him on the tree but did catch him peeking around when he came back down on the ground.

Once we finished the loop, it was time to head home.  As I often do, I made use of the hours in the car to review and edit my photos and finish up this blog.  We are now home and wishing we were back on one of those decks watching the mountains.