Little Bottoms  2/27/11

It was a perfect winter campout.  A short in to our favorite place which we had all to ourselves.  What about Gregorys in the distance?

And who joined us?  The Brush Swine.  Why?  No threat of rain.

And this guy?  It's Grady, the Highlander legend, preparing for a pappa smurf crop dusting.

Yes, there was this guy.  Always prepared with his portable stomach pump.

Just an overall golden and bright walk in Saturday.

Eventually we settle in to wood duties.  The surfeit of fire material is anomalous for this popular place.  So popular and beautiful was the weekend, the SouthernHighlanders had it to themselves.

Sally Dumplin is assuming his position of Presidential power. Do you see the highlander skull in the photo?

I'll zoom it for ya a bit.  Kinda creepy.  Now we know that he summons his power from the dark side.

Sunday morning was problematic for the ombrophobiac, though.  The weather turned, briefly providing a few rain spurts to cause Larry to don the wet weather gear.

It didn't slow the ombrophobiac too much nor Aunt Jemima shown here with flapjackery.

This is the Little Bottomed Group complete with Jerky Mike.  Again, the first time I have ever stayed here with no company.

As Dave and I were departing, I rounded a bend on the Abram's creek when I heard an unusual sound.  I was immediately confronted by this fellow crunching on a crawdad.  It's a river otter and he was heading upstream.  I fumbled for the camera and he put on quite a show there popping in and out of the water.  I managed to capture about 5 seconds of video that isn't worth posting.  It just shows him pop up from below the surface.  Ironically, this is my second sighting of river otter in the Smokies and both times I was with Dave.  This guy was smaller than the first but it was exciting just to have him be there and provide a great wildlife encounter. And yes, we did have a snake sighting as well.  Jerky Mike saw a water snake coiled near the trail on Saturday.  I have never failed to see snakes on this trail in any month of the year.