Fly Fishing Eastern Tennessee April 2014

You get enough hooks tangled up, caught in clothing or trees, or stuck between rocks and at some point you're bound to just give up fly fishing altogether.  I was about there - but something held me back from throwing in the towel completely.  What if we could get proper instruction on this seemingly simply task and what if the professional showing us around knew where to fish, and what to fish with?  This would surely help right?!

So we packed up on Easter weekend for a three day trip easterward to the TN/NC border.  We camped at the beautiful Hiwassee/Ocoee Scenic River State Park.  Several impressions: Great place to bring kids, there was practically an army of children under twelve there, strict enforcement by park service of quiet hours, no alcohol policy, and the park is situated right next to an old Native American fishing weir, which was really cool to see and explore.  For those unfamiliar, this is a weir:

 The camping that night was easy, and we got great rest in our hammocks.  The next morning was overcast and drizzly, and we were concerned about the fate of our trip.  I had arranged a guide, Bill Stranahan, through Southeastern Anglers, to take us out on a float trip for half the day.  Bill met us at the campsite at 1 and at that time it was still raining.  For anyone who has read any of our other trip journals,  you know that rain is nothing new for the Hollars.  We had a wonderful time despite it, catching many beautiful rainbow trout thanks to Bill's excellent tips and tricks.  Here is some video from the trip:

2014, The Thaw

Winter has been brutal.  Polar vortexes, travel for work, and a myriad of reasons why this is the first opportunity to get out into the wilderness.  Unfortunately I made the trek out to Virgin Falls solo, as Aaron had to work unexpectedly this weekend.  Phenomenal hike, but crowded.  I think every Boy Scout in middle TN was on the trail Saturday.  I had packed in my gear thinking I might stay the night solo, but the dogs, and my better judgement said to go ahead and get out.  So, round trip down to Big Laurel Creek Falls and back was 6.6 miles and a brutal uphill on the way back for a couple of miles definitely had me huffing and puffing.  When we return together, we'll stay overnight at Laurel Falls under the waterfall if we can manage it.  Such a cool spot to camp.

It gave me a chance to try our new GoPro camera however, and play around with the editing software.  I know this first attempt is not the greatest, but very cool to have this available to us now for our adventures in 2014.  Thanks to Aaron's parents for such a great Christmas gift!

Great Smoky Mountain National Park

In our quest to see all of the National Parks, we'd be remiss to stay in TN too long before visiting our local spot - Great Smoky Mountain National Park.  The Smokies have always been a favorite of mine.  The ancient, forest covered hills have a soulful quality that the west's jagged peaks and intimidating grandeur do not.  These mountains are a shadow of what they once were millions of years ago, and perhaps its the history lesson in geology that I find so fascinating.  Nope, actually that's not it.  It's the variety of wildlife and vegetation.  The Smokies boast the largest in number species of wildflowers of any of the US National Parks.  In addition, elk were reintroduced back in 2002.  Though we did not have the pleasure of seeing any, its nice to know that the original 40 or so have now mated and produced a population of over 200.  Elk were made extinct in the east years ago with hunting and poaching going largely unregulated.  Fortunately, after their reintroduction, it is now considered illegal to kill an elk on national park grounds.

There were no wild animal encounters on this trip, however we did meet up with two good friends from Charlotte, NC and enjoyed a luxurious weekend of car camping at Cosby Campground.  Though I have heard the Smokies are typically considered one of the most crowded national parks, we were delighted to have much of the campground entirely to ourselves.  From the Cosby grounds, you can hike one of many various trails leading to balds, waterfalls and even the Appalachain Trail.  We met a hiker in the parking lot who was section hiking the AT solo.  A lonely endeavor to be sure!

My favorite part of the weekend was a hike that Cortney and I did on Saturday morning.  From the A-loop in the campground, you can hike the Gabes Mountain Trail up to Hen Wallow Falls.  The total distance to the falls and back is approximately 5 miles.  The ascent on the way there is strenuous at times, but for the most part is a gradual up hill until the very end, when you hike down a steep section of trail to the bottom of the falls.

I found Hen Wallow Falls to be one of the most gorgeous waterfalls I have ever seen, mainly for its many tiers and facets in the rock face which creates hundreds of tiny waterfalls as the water cascades to the pool below.

The trail is well maintained and if you're hiking in the fall or winter (which we were obviously not) you can see some pretty incredible views.  In the summer, the views were mostly obscured by trees.  The abundance of tulip poplar made me think that this area of the Smokies must be particularly magical in the fall when all of their leaves turn yellow.  I made a mental note to return there in early October if possible.

Bluegrass Along the Harpeth

With our travel schedules for work, its harder and harder to find motivation to travel on the weekends. Fortunately for us, Nashville and in this case, Franklin have so much to offer that we are quite content to amuse ourselves locally.

We had heard about the annual bluegrass festival, Bluegrass Along the Harpeth, from friends.  Being avid bluegrass connoisseurs we decided to check it out a couple of weekends ago.  The festival is held in downtown Franklin on the circle.  It features competitions in dancing as well as bluegrass.  We watched most of the music from the patio at The Mellow Mushroom.  If you're thinking of going, this is a family friendly festival - so no beer tents and riff raff, quite what you'd expect from Franklin.  Here are some videos from the day:

Grand Teton National Park, Day 3 A Grizzly Encounter

The morning of the 5th of July was beautiful.  We both woke up pretty early having gotten to bed early the previous night.  Rolling out of the tent to see the stillness on Leigh Lake in the morning light was just breathtaking.  I was admiring the view as Aaron began preparing his fly rod.  We had taken all of the items in the bear box out to prepare some breakfast and then load up the canoe.  I made a couple of cups of coffee as Aaron fished.  

Soon after, we began to hear unusual noises in the woods that we had not heard before.  Typically a rustling in the woods would reveal a deer or a marmot, but whatever was making this noise was much larger.  It would be quiet, and then all of a sudden, a giant crash of snapping branches and twigs.  This noise appeared to be getting closer, moving through the woods, parallel to the shore. 

Aaron in true Hollywood horror movie fashion, turns to me and says “I’m going to go check that out” and wanders into the woods holding only his morning cup of coffee.  I focus my attention back to organizing and cleaning up the site to get us ready to go when we finished up fishing.  I hear Aaron begin clapping, and saying “No bear, get away bear.”  The above photo is not of our bear.  As you might imagine, I didn't race for the camera at the time I heard him say this.  

According to Aaron, the bear had just pounced on a marmot or a squirrel when he finally identified that it was in fact, a bear.  Wanting to avoid it, he had hoped the bear would not see him.  But at that very moment, the bear popped his head up and locked eyes with Aaron.  Aaron says he lowered his head and clearly had the intention of finding out if this was a beast that he could eat.  He would determine that by walking towards it, and seeing if it ran away.

I look up from what I am doing to Aaron who is about 50 yards from me on the beach.  Walking towards him, at a range of about 20 feet, is a gigantic grizzly bear.  My blood rushed to my stomach and my heart pounded.  Was I about to watch my husband be eaten by a grizzly?  It certainly appeared that this bear thought Aaron was prey.  He had, after all, just been out hunting in the woods.  Aaron continued making noise as the bear bowed its head and continue to stalk towards him.  I joined him in making a ton of racket, smashing a paddle against a tree and yelling.  The bear finally turned, having assessed that this was not going to be an easy kill, and slowly wandered up the hill and away from our campsite.  Aaron slowly walked back to me at the beach and took up the paddle in the event the bear decided to return.

I packed our entire site into the canoe in about 3 to 5 minutes.  It was the fastest pack up and get ouf of here we’ve ever done.  In fact, we didn’t actually relax until we were in the middle of Leigh Lake, and could take in what had just happened.  That bear had been hungry, and we were about to be its breakfast.  Thank god Aaron had not turned and ran, as I am certain the bear would have reacted differently and immediately assumed he could kill and eat him.  So, fighting back and yelling at a big bear will eventually work, you just have to keep at it apparently.  Lesson learned.

Suffice it to say, after that event and of course with the annoyance of the aforementioned water purifier breakdown, it was an easy choice to get to paddling back to civilization and the security of a more crowded campground.  We returned to Dornan’s to turn in our canoe and determined to have lunch overlooking the cathedral group and revel in our good fortune.

We wound up back at Gros Ventre for a third night of camping and told our story to anyone who would listen.  We met three people our age from Santa Barbara who had just finished the Teton Crest Trail and has spotted a couple of black bears on their trek.  When visiting our famed western mountain parks, it really can’t be stressed enough that you need to be prepared for anything and everything.  After Glacier last year, and now the Tetons, we are continually humbled by what can, and will, go wrong when you’re out in the middle of nowhere.

Grand Teton National Park, Day 2 July 4th, 2013

The plan for day 2 was to head for the backcountry.  Research prior to the trip suggested that going by canoe from the String Lake Trail head, up String Lake, and on to Leigh Lake was the way to go.  This required some logistics and considerable worry on my part, as we are not experienced canoe paddlers by any means, and what if we capsized with all of our stuff!  Suffice it to say, I didn’t sleep well the night prior, in anticipation of what would be a monumental couple of days.  After the first night at Leigh Lake, we had planned to canoe on up the lake and then backpack in to Bearpaw Lake.  This did not occur, for reasons I will explain shortly.

There were administrative affairs to attend to in the morning - such as waiting a half hour in a line to get our permits from the welcome center.  Then there was the wait at the local fly fishing shop, to obtain our fishing licenses, and then lastly there was waiting to get our canoe loaded up on the car.  I would advise anyone heading out into a national park on a holiday weekend as we did to get a very early start.  We were at the put in for String Lake by 9:30am, so we beat most of the traffic.  Exiting on the following day we saw long lines of cars at the entry gate.  Here's a map of where we were:

String Lake is easily one of the most beautiful mountain lakes in the world.  The backdrop of the Teton peaks and the crystal clear, shallow water with giant fish swimming around - it's a sight to behold.  The trip was relatively short, and soon we had reached the portage to Leigh Lake.  The canoe rental outfits will loan you a set of wheels to load up the canoe with so you can make an easier portage.  This was critical for us, as we had approximately 70-80 lbs of gear in that canoe for our two nights in the woods and could not have hoisted the canoe without assistance of additional people.  A couple of pics of String Lake and the portage to Leigh Lake:

Soon we were paddling out onto Leigh Lake, which was far more scary to me as the water was very deep, and a capsize here would really ruin our trip.  The lake was calm however, and we were able to easily find out campsite, Leigh Lake 13.  

That’s when our war with the mosquitos and horse flies really got going.  This was not a mere annoyance, these suckers were out for blood and nothing was going to stop them.  Except DEET.  After I got tired of swatting, I finally bit the bullet and went for a dip in the frigid water.  It was very refreshing and I wasn’t alone in that thinking.  All across the lake, kayaks, canoes, and paddle boards carried sun burned adventurers on that gorgeous afternoon.  

We had our first close run in with wildlife that afternoon, though it would not be the last.  As Aaron napped in the hammock, a giant mule deer wandered up a couple of feet away to check it out and nibble on some bushes around the campsite.  We named her Dierdre, and she came and went multiple times throughout the evening.  Sweet little thing, here is some footage:

Having prepared dinner, I went to filter some fresh water with our new water purifier for later that evening.  In doing so at home, I had no issue.  However after filling one nalgene completely to the top, the purifier pump broke.  This would be trouble for us the following day, not having a clean source of water to drink.  The alternative would have been boiling a bunch of water before we went to bed, and then allowing it to cool over night.  I suppose had other events not transpired, we may have pushed on to Bearpaw the following day as planned despite the issue with the water filter, but other issues arose that gave us pause in continuing our journey.

Now would be a good time to tell you that these campsites have huge metal bear boxes permanently fixed in the area and the rangers stress the importance of always having your food locked up in the beer box when you are not consuming it because they will smell it and come after it if you don’t.  We followed these rules closely and went to bed that night after a brief thunderstorm feeling somewhat safe (or as safe as you can ever really feel when you’re in the backcountry and no one is within 2 or 3 miles of where you are).

Grand Teton National Park, Day 1

Tetons, Day 1 July 3, 2013

The flight into Jackson Hole was nothing short of amazing.  Cruising low over the iced peaks and looking down into the bluest ice crevasses below took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes.  Not long after, the first site of the Tetons came into view, and as if to please just us, the pilot took a second turn around the airport and we took it all in.  As you de-board down the stairs of the plane, Elk antlers in the shape of an arch adorn the entry to an immaculate airport.  The drive from the airport to downtown Jackson is brief, but breath taking, and you are quickly reminded of how completely small and insignificant we all are in the shadow of such grand mountains.  

Locals complained of the heat as we collected supplies for our three days of camping.

We rolled into Gros Ventre campground and got one of the remaining 2 tent camping spots in the whole place.  Not long after setting up camp, we had the pleasure of meeting our camp neighbors Marshall and Karen, who had ridden up by motorcycle from Phoenix.  Marshall, who retired from the construction business years ago, tipped us off to a drive not far from our campsite where we might spot some buffalo.  Aaron and I, having never laid eyes on a real live buffalo, wasted no time loading up the car to head out on our sunset buffalo drive.  We were not disappointed.  The site of the wild beasts grazing in the fields, with the back drop of the Tetons and the sun just beginning to set was almost too much to take in all at once.  Here are a few pictures and videos:

We have become smitten with this land, and the thought that every American owes it to himself and herself to see this and experience this, in any way possible.  It is truly a testimony to Teddy Roosevelt for ensuring that this type of land would always be a public treasure, owned by every American and not just the rich.  And this is just day 1...