Date: 2022-05-13
From: Birch Spring Gap tent site

To: Spence Field Shelter
Miles today: 11.0
Weather: broken clouds

I had a relatively easy planned day today, trying to do 11 miles to Spence Field Shelter. However, around noon, I received an email that required me to be back home by Wednesday, shortening my planned 10-day trip to 8 days. No time like the present to start doing the longer miles, so I adjusted my day's goal to try to make 17 miles to Derrick Knob Shelter. As you can see in the picture, there was bear scat of substantial size on the trail today. I laid out my glasses for perspective (not to try to make a bear scat face, although it seems I had some success with this as well). There were about 10 of these on the trail today. Fred, my shuttle driver, noted that the Smoky Mountains National Parks don't allow for bear hunting and, in his opinion, this creates an environment where they are too many aggressive bears as compared to areas outside of the Smokies, where they generally allow 2-4 weeks of bear hunting per year. My limited experience in the Smokies would indicate Fred is correct, way more bear sign and activity in the Smokies compared to other areas.Around 3pm, it started to rain buckets, and I pulled into Spence Field Shelter about a half hour later, not too wet. I secured a space in the dry shelter to wait out the rain. I wanted to hike another 6 miles to the next shelter, but the rain continued so I decided to hold on the longer miles for future days. As I started to plan out the next several days of hiking, I realized I was in for some pretty big miles - 15, 17 and 19 mile days were in my future, a lot more than the 10-12 mile days I had originally planned. Also, finding a place to resupply and still make these bigger mile days was going to be an issue. I looked to see if I could stretch my 5 days of food to 8 days. My 5 days of food was pretty robust, and I hadn't eaten any of my packed food while in Fontana since food places were available there, so I felt comfortable stretching it to 8 days. Much more worried about the higher mileage days.   Around 8pm, a Smoky Mountain Parks ridgerunner and several hikers came into camp. The ridgerunner had shut down Russell Field Shelter, about 3 miles away from Spence, due to bear activity and required all the hikers to go to the next shelter. Apparently, a hiker had left a food bag open at Russell Field Shelter and then had gone to get water from the nearby spring. The bear saw this and ran into the shelter to retrieve the food bag. Once this story was told to the ridgerunner, he consulted with others in the park service and shut down the shelter. I asked the ridgerunner, what happens now? He said, "We'll try to antagonize the bear to get it to move away from the shelter and, if not successful, we'll have to relocate the bear." One of the hikers had video of the bear waiting/pacing around the outside of the shelter area. Also, the ridgerunner saw my bear cannister and asked me to hang it on the bear cables. Really? The reason I got the bear cannister was so I wouldn't have to mess with hanging it. "The bears are so persistent, if they find your cannister they will stay after it until it is miles away from here," said the ridgerunner. So I learned from the ridgerunner how to hang my bear cannister. More experienced hikers shook their heads in dismay and said, "I've never seen a bear cannister hung on a bear cable before..."