Gatlinburg, TN - Cades Cove and the bears

So, as promised, here are some photos of a Mother bear and her four cubs.

Cades Cove seems to be the area to see a lot of wild life.  It's a nine mile loop road with a lot of lookout points, creeks, little water falls and beautiful scenes.  I'll be sharing more of this area in other photo essays, but this one is strictly for the bears.

A Park Ranger told us that there was a bumper crop of acorns last year and that is why the bears had more than one or two cubs this year.  They must really be used to people not hurting them because they weren't aggressive at all.  Of course everyone kept their distance and we were all pretty quiet.  You can tell there is something exciting to see as you are driving along because all of a sudden traffic comes to a stop.  Surprisingly the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is not very crowded, so you can actually drive along very slow and enjoy all the scenery.  Once you see all the cars pulled over as far to the side as they can get, you just follow suit, get out and see what all the excitement is about.  We were lucky here that we weren't too far back because eventually a park ranger did come by to get traffic moving and I'm sure to check on the safety of the people and the bears.

The little cub on the far right is my favorite.  You'll see why as you follow the photos along.

My, what big feet you have.  Five toes too.

Bath Time!  This has to be the cutest sight ever.

Isn't he just too darn cute?

This little one is sweet, maybe a little girl.  It was always on the other side of the Mother.

Some photos are just not clear when blown up, I think when I am excited I just keep snapping the photos hoping I get some decent ones.  I was pleasantly surprised when I uploaded this.  I hope you enjoyed them!