I'm not sure what category to put this story under, so i hope i'm in the right spot. So Me, My Wife and two daughters planned a trip this weekend to Gatlinburg. My wife loves the shopping, I love the mountains, seems like a great compromise. Day one is rather unexciting. A lot of walking, people watching eating and Shopping. Day two was my Day to decide what to do. My plan was to wake up as early as possible Saturday Morning and get to the Roaring fork Motor Trail before the crowd shows up, and supposedly its a great time to see wildlife. I pack up the wife and kids around 7 to head to the Motor Trail. It's a nice easy drive from Gatlinburg, and takes about 15 minutes to get there. We enter Roaring Fork around 7:30ish, and start the slow drive through. There are a lot of bends and turns in the road (obviously going through the mountains) and as we come around one my wife and I simultaneously spot a big black four legged animal walking down the road ahead of us just around a bend. We hurry up and get the girls out of their car seats and sit them on our laps. This is the first time any of us have seen a bear in the wild, and it was a great experience. He/She just meandered down the road at a very slow pace, picking berries off the bushes every once in a while. We followed behind him for about 1/4 mile before he finally trotted off into the woods. What a Great start to our morning! We where feeling high and mighty knowing we encountered a Bear and nobody lost limbs or lives. While we were in The motor Trail i wanted to hike the Rainbow Trail, and i knew it was going to be the first trailhead we would come across. As we approached it, the cars where piling up at a very rapid rate, and i was very upset realizing we weren't the only one's with the plan to get to the Motor Trail early. The parking lot was nearly full, so i decided to keep going, hoping everyone was doing the Rainbow Trail first, so the other trails may not be as crowded yet. I was right, the next trailhead was for the Grotto Fallls and there was ONE single car in the parking area. We hurried up out of our cars, got all of our belongings we might need (So i thought) and headed off to the trail. Its is a 1.4 mile walk along a ridge line that takes you to a Waterfall and Grotto. Very easy walk for the most part. As we start our ascent and around corners we start to notice heavy bear poop. Very fresh Bear poop. One poop was a HUGE pile of shredded reddish berries mixed with Reddish poop. The other poop we saw where pellet like and black, sort of like deer poop but much bigger, and much more. I thought this was very odd that most of the poop was pellet like, and then out of nowhere was this big huge pile of different color/texture poop. I'm guessing it was either a really big bear with a different diet, or a different animal? (Anyone know) Needless to say, all of it was VERY fresh like we were in very close proximity to the bears that just relieved themselves. My wife takes pics of the poop (Weird i know, but im sure one of you is going to ask for the pic so it might come in handy. LOl) and we move on. As we get to about the half way point of the trail, my wife luckily turns around to see TWO black Bears "stalking" us from about 50 feet away. Now this is the first time we've ever came across a Bear without the safety of the car. At first I'm calm and go through the routine of acting big, and making noises with my mouth and the stick i have in my hand. They keep coming... In my head i'm thinking "Whiteblaze always taught me if encountered by a Bear stand your ground, act big and make noise, but DO NOT LOSE EYE CONTACT." Well I'm here to say that Sh@t didn't work! Now they are about 25 feet from me, and i'm in between them and my family telling my wife to walk backwards maintaining eye contact. As they get to about 20 or so feet from me, the first one stops, turns to his buddy for a second and then turns back at me and starts a gallop (Best word to describe it. But it was really like my Dog at home, where they have this playful look on there face, there mouths are wide open and there front feet are kicking out in front of them like they are in a playful attack mode) Thats the best way i can describe it. It was very surreal to see this large animal running at me, and my family is right behind me. He gallops (NO snarling, or growling or drooling) right up to about 5 feet from me (This is not an exaggeration) and takes a quick turn into the woods, right before we were about to get into an all out war. He never feared me, nor did he seem to really want to hurt me. I'm not sure if it was a test to see if we were going to be an easy target or what, but he tested me all the way to my limits. As he darted UP the cliffside (The forest is really dense right now, so once the Bear got off trail, he was gone in no time) my attention turned to the Second Bear who was still pacing towards us. I kept firm eye contact on him the whole time while making this creepiesh howling noise (I dont know where it came from, but my wife and kids thought it was a hysterical noise after the fact. I was the butt of all the jokes after that for the noise i was making.) This one kept his distance from us, but would not let up from "stalking" us. Now I forgot to mention, one of my Daughters is TWO years old, the other is 7. My wife carried the two year old, and the seven year old stood in between us. As we come to a spot on the trail, where it sort of doubles back, and heads up a steep ridge, we could see back on the trail we came from, and the second bear was still slowly following us. This is the last i saw of the second bear, as we where far enough away that we could actually run up the trail a ways. to get a safer distance from him. Once we got to the Grotto, we hung out there for a while in shock. My wife cried, realizing how close we where to immediate danger, while my two daughters played in the water fall without a care in the world. Daddy's Heart was beating out of his chest, as im planning our escape route through the gauntlet of Bears we imagine are going to be waiting for us on the way back on the trail. Luckily we waited at the Waterfall for a good 30 minutes, hoping those from the Rainbow Trail would all be gracing us with there presence soon. We where right, as we started our trek back to our car (It was an out and back trail, not a loop) there where people coming by the packs up the trail. Families with babies and kids, elders, Amish. As we passed people we would tell them what we experienced and wish them luck, but most looked at us like we where crazy. Funny thing is, when we got back to the section that we saw the Bears there was a group of people gathered looking at a Bear lounging up in a tree. Right in the same spot the encounter happened. When we got to the "viewing" area, this Bear stands up, and starts climbing down the tree. We moved along knowing we had seen enough of that Bear earlier in the day, and we didnt want to see him up close again. I have never seen my wife so Happy to see her car. We did a couple more hikes that day (Laurell Falls and Clingmons Dome) after we reported the Bear sighting.
Side Note: My Wife started Her Period (Sorry if TMI) literally right when we got on the trail, and she had not Tampons on her. Could this possibly be why the Bears where after us? Has anyone else had an experience like this?