Great Smokey Mountains

[fuzzybabybunny]

Hi all, first post here in the photo section for me! I'm from the nc3 forums (nc3.no-ip.com) and traced this site from ilovemittens' sig.

This spawned from the Cades Cove threads. I went to the GSM last year at the end of winter to do some solo backpacking (I'm from southwest Ohio). I guess I have an interesting story to tell.

So I went to Great Smokey Mountains to go backpacking and hike up Clingman's Dome, the highest peak east of the Mississippi. It's a pretty tough, slow going hike up to the peak because of all the deep snow that one has to trudge through during Spring. At around 2PM I was halfway to the top, and I had a choice between hiking to a designated campground to spend the night, and then in the morning hike to the top, or hike all the way to the top all in one go, get some sunset pictures, make an inpromptu shelter somewhere, and wake up early the next morning and get some sunrise pictures, all with the lovely vistas that only Clingman's Dome could afford. I couldn't pass up the photo opportunity. Besides, I had heard that there was an observation tower at the top and I figured I could just walk in, close the door behind me, and have a nice shelter.

I made it to the top about an hour before sunset, only to discover that the observation tower was an open-air design, and was actually the LEAST protected from the elements anywhere. I made a quick dinner and took sunset pictures with frigid hands. The wind was blowing strong over the snow capped mountain, strong and cold enough to make the electronics in my camera malfunction here and there. When the sun finally set, I realized that I was on top of a snowy mountain all by myself, with the temperature well below freezing and with no natural cover over than the skinny, needle-less evergreens. I realized that pitching a tent would be suicide because there was no way in hell that my tent and sleeping bag would keep me warm out in the wind.

Luckily, at the base of the observation tower I found a room in which I could spend the night:





Needless to say, it was really, really creepy. The long hall-like room led off into darkness, made only darker by the dark stones used to construct it. The rusted iron door would creak as it was being opened, and there was no lock to ward off intruders.

That night was horrible. The cold stone ground sapped most of my body heat through my bag and pad, and the temperature was so cold that the inside of my bag just couldn't trap my body heat. I had full body shivers. Teeth chattering for hours straight. At around 2AM and with me still awake, I heard the snow outside crunching underneath something... or someone's.... footsteps.


Then I heard the iron door squeak open.

Then I felt a presence beside me.

Keep in mind that this is in a narrow hallway-like room, about 5 feet across. I was next to one of the walls, completely encased, face and all, in my sleeping bag. SOMETHING was moving right next to me, making little patter sounds on the concrete.

As far as I was concerned that something could be one of three things:\

1. Bear. Bad. I might be able to scare it away, but why the heck would it be wandering on top of a freezing mountain at 2AM?

2. Random animal. Not so bad, depending on the animal. The fact that whatever it was was literally a foot away from the face of my sleeping bag was REALLY worrying me.

3. A person. THE WORST POSSIBLE CASE. Anyone who is wandering around in this weather in pitch darkness at 2AM on top of a lonely mountain peak CANNOT be sane.

Keep in mind that I was running these options through my head as I continued to hear shuffling sounds a foot away from my face in complete darkness, miles away from the nearest form of help. All alone. About to get mauled, chopped up, stabbed, or eaten.

Then I heard the tiny sound of fabric being chewed up. Ok, so a person can be ruled out. I hope. An animal. Great. Then I realized that if my backpack got chewed up too bad I wouldn't be able to make it off of this mountain.

I flicked open the knife blade in my Leatherman multi-tool and wrapped my other hand around my little can of mace. My finger was at the ready to flick on my headlamp. I couldn't let my backpack get destroyed. I couldn't stop shivering.

On three.

One.

Two.

Three.

With a grunt, I bolted up in my sleeping bag, flicked on my light, and held out my knife and mace.






It was a mouse. It squeaked in fear and crawled up a rusted iron bar and into a hole in the wall. It was only an inch long, and admittedly, very cute. I glaced at the door. It was closed. There was nothing else, only the mouse and I.

The next morning I found no extra footsteps outside in the snow. I guess you start to hear things when you're camped out alone on top of a mountain with hypothermia and death as a reality. The mouse had been chewing on the tips of my gloves and made a little hole in one of the finger compartments. I had made food a few hours ago in those gloves. There had been no food in that room with me.

The shot that I got the next morning was this:



And some other random shots from the trip:







I didn't get really any good pictures in Cades Cove. The light wasn't good enough and my Oly C-750 is too slow and high ISO performance sucks the big one. Since then I've upgraded to a Rebel XT and am MUCH happier.

[ilikemittens]

omg you have the rebel xt?!?! that's what i'm getting

i LOVE those pictures, especially the last two. and especially the last one. i have yet to take a tripod somewhere with pretty running water and take a picture with creamy flowingness. may i ask what setting you had on that last one (if you could even remember). i think the one time i tried to do it, everything burnt out. i know you have to have a longer exposure but then it makes everything else white. humm.

i also love the story, although i admit i was hoping you'd say it was a fuzzy baby smokey mountain bunny.

[Hakko]

Good post and a pleasure to read. I always get paranoid when I am camping. I took my wife on a camping trip and I kept us up all night with my paranoa.

Really like the last picture. I hope to come across a similar scene one day when I have a better camara. Too bad I can't borrow one of the cameras from work.

[fuzzybabybunny]

For shots like the last picture, it's best to get those during dusk, and have the river run sideways across the frame. Being that it's dusk will allow you to use longer shutter speeds without overexposing everything, and allow for that misty/flowing effect. It's too hard in the daytime because the slowest you can drop your shutter speed down to is perhaps 1/30s with aperture stopped all the way down to f/8 on a prosumer camera (which also means quality loss).

During dusk you can get shutter speeds of a few seconds, and that really helps in creating the effect.

For that shot my tripod was in the water, the shutter was operated via remote, and it was DAMN COLD.

As for hiking alone, yeah, it really gets crazy sometimes at night with all the sounds in the distance. One night I was asleep in my tent, which was fastpacked (just the rainfly as the roof, no side walls), and I heard a sniffing sound right up against my ear from within my dream. I sprang up and something immediately skurried out of my tent.

I always hike with a knife and mace, and MAY consider bringing a gun. A lot of hikers don't like the fact that people will bring guns, but come on, I'm solo, I'm not big, and my stamina is not exactly marathon material. Mace isn't always going to work, and a little pocketknife ain't gonna do anything for most encounters.

[Hakko]

I should take mace next time. I only have one leg when sleeping (or trying to). I'm at a pretty bad disadvantage is something goes wrong.

[fuzzybabybunny]

You only have one leg? What happened?

[Hakko]

Long story. short version is I and a girl woke up to a burning apartment and in the end we couldn't get out so after she had passed out I covered her with my own body. Skipping details to where I am today. 3rd degree burns from chest down (55% of body), right knee cap and patella tendon totally removed with quads retracted into my inner thigh and the left leg amputated below knee.

I do have a prosethesis, but I certainly don't wear it at night.

[fuzzybabybunny]

DAMN.............. you PWN.

Was it firemen who eventually got you out? I can't imagine being forced to stay there while I'm being burned alive. Was the girl ok?

[Hakko]

After burning for what I think was about 20 minutes, a spray of water from outside came through the window and I sat up and let it fall on her and I then figured my job was done and I gave in. They didn't know we were in there. It wasn't until the entire apartment collapsed that a truck went by that cleared the smoke for a minute and a firefighter saw my head sticking out of the rubble. They came in and got me out and then her. They told me that when they got to me, I was fully awake and digging myself out. I have no memory of this. The girl had 3rd degree on her left foot and lost the toes on said foot. That is all.

Looking back in hindsight, I wish I had thrown a lamp or something out the window to get attention. That would have done the trick, but when you wake up and all exits is a wall of flames, and the carpet you are crawling on is smoking so that there really isn't much air to breathe, it becomes harder to think under pressure. It's basically my one regret. Neither one of us thought about it. She became unconcious after about 10 to 15 minutes.

Back to pictures.

[fuzzybabybunny]

Agreed.