Closures Due to Bears-----CS 13 and Spence Field
Believe there are some people on this board who are headed up in that area sometime soon.........
heads up......
http://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/temproadclose.htm
Campsite #11 is also closed due to bear activity.
There are also aggressive bear warnings for Mollies, Russell, Collins, and Cosby. Any or all of these shelters could be closed within the next week or so.
Apparently this year's thru hikers have pissed off the bears. <lol>
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SMHC Trail Maintainer
Volunteer in the Park (VIP) GSMNP
with these closures and possibly others to come. Does this mean we need to camp away from the shelter on our AT hikes in this or other areas??
If an AT shelter is closed... you just have to keep moving on to the next one.
As for campsite #11, something is up.
Not only is #13, #113, and Spence Field Closed (all which make sense) but #11 has been closed for 2 years due to damage from the tornados. So I don't understand why it is on the list (unless they made a mistake and meant #21).
But I have NEVER seen the Park Service close an entire TRAIL due to bear activity. Yet currently Meigs Creek Tr, Meigs Mtn Tr, and Curry Mtn Tr (along with camp sites #19 and #20 along these trails) are closed.
I'm thinking something is up... has there been another bear attack?
I've seen them close trails down due to bears.....it's been a while but it has happened...
As for CS 11----it shouldn't be on the list due to bear closures but rather from storm damage.....it hasn't been open since that storm......it's just listed in the wrong place....
As for a bear attack----I haven't heard of anything like that but I'll call and ask on Monday morning...
I noticed farther down that it lists Curry Mount Tr as being closed due to "aggressive bear activity".
Yeah......I saw that the other day.......
that was one reason I was going to drop the dime on Monday...
its gonna be a long summer with bear closures the way this weather is playing out...
it reminds me of a few (maybe 5 or 6) years ago when the area had a bunch of bear incidents...
I was headed to CS 13 and Spence field this weekend - I'm not that surprised about 13. It's the closest to Gregory Bald, and the flame azaleas - so it's a very popular site, only 4 miles or so from a road, so easy for most people to get to...
So, we are heading off to the area of Mt Sterling instead. Oh well.
Make sure you are prepared for bugs. Mt. Sterling might be the highest elevation tenting campsite in the park, but it also has the worst bugs. They are not so bad when you get away from the campsite. I think it has something to do with the kinds of plants that grow in the clearing below the fire tower... seems to be some sort of a bug attractant.Originally Posted by HeartFire
I thought I had seen somewhere that campsite 11 was permanently closed and had marked it as such on my trail map.
I can't find where I saw it was permanently closed and still see it on the 2103 park trail map pdf. Ahh well, here's hoping they open it up again.
I believe that I read the same thing (11 permanently closed) on the GSMNP Temporary Road and Facilities website about a year ago. Since then, they've just left it listed as closed.
The one I'm more interested in is the Scott Mountain trail closure. I don't think I ever read a reason for the closure, and it seems like it has been about a year. Hoping that we're not about to see the trail mileage shrink in the park... again.
scott mountain trail was also closed due to the same storm that closed 11..................
But all the other trails that were closed because of the storm have been reopened. Is Scott Mountain just not used enough be make it a priority?
that's the only thing i can think of...........it musta had real bad damage......cause it was closed at the same time the others were.............
but, yes, the other trails were open-----even though it took em, what a year or more, to open beard cane.........
Saw a bear rooting around on Oct Mt in Becket last week. Was maybe a two year old. Couple years back Tuesdays was trash day in Lee. Bears came to town for the free lunch. Anyway my take in this area is Bears will not be an issue because of bear boxes and the fact they have much easier sources of food. Just hope they stay outta my garden. They do seem to love turnips. Also around here they are hit and run artists. One of the funnest things I ever saw was a pair of bears feasting on some cub scouts grub in the lower Sperry Road campground at Greylock. One had ripped the top off a huge bottle of orange soda and was standing on a picnic table guzzling it down, looked like a thirsty huge kid. Nick named that one two gulp. Needless to say the campers had some issues with their supply.
called the park a few minutes ago--------scott mountain is closed due to the storm from a few years ago..
they have closed trails in the past due to bear activity-----in this case, there was a hiker on curry mountain trail that had a bear follow him and the bear was acting aggressively.....so they closed the two campsites in that area, and closed trails to give the bear some space..........and they have rangers out monitoring the activity..........
hope that helps.........
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