Closed captioning is available for this video by clicking the caption button in the lower right-hand corner of the video controls. ]]> http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/the-elk-rut-in-cataloochee-is-now/feed/ 6 http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/scenes-of-summer/ http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/scenes-of-summer/#comments Sat, 26 Jun 2010 03:25:47 +0000 admin http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/?p=1739   The park is a busy place in the summer. Life abounds and park visitation soars. Native shrubs and wildflowers make a beautiful show. Waterfalls and streams cool the warm summer air. Enjoy the start of summer with this scenic trip to Cataloochee and the music of Bill Mize. Click here to watch!

Closed captioning is available for this video by clicking the caption button in the lower right-hand corner of the video controls. ]]> http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/scenes-of-summer/feed/ 0 http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/a-year-in-the-smokies-2009/ http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/a-year-in-the-smokies-2009/#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:50:17 +0000 admin http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/?p=1505   Experience a year’s worth of Smokies moments in this short film. Take a look back to the many places 2009 has taken our video blog. Click here or on the photo to see it all.

Closed captioning is available for this video by clicking the caption button in the lower right-hand corner of the video controls. ]]> http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/a-year-in-the-smokies-2009/feed/ 4 http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/an-autumn-postcard-featuring-elk/ http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/an-autumn-postcard-featuring-elk/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:18:30 +0000 admin http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/?p=1360   Images of the season, from elk to mountains painted in fall color! Click here or on the photo to view the video. ]]> http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/an-autumn-postcard-featuring-elk/feed/ 3 http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/elk-watching-in-cataloochee/ http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/elk-watching-in-cataloochee/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:54:58 +0000 admin http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/?p=1330   Elk bulls are bugling, fighting, and finding every way they can to display dominance during the breeding season that is happening right now. Click here or on the photo to get a sneak peak of elk activity in Cataloochee.

Closed captioning is available for this video by clicking the caption button in the lower right-hand corner of the video controls. ]]> http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/elk-watching-in-cataloochee/feed/ 1 http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/elk-corps-volunteers-sought/ http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/elk-corps-volunteers-sought/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:31:57 +0000 admin http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/blog/?p=567 The Great Smoky Mountains National Park Volunteers-in-Parks program is currently enlisting volunteers to assist with the experimental elk reintroduction project in Cataloochee Valley, N.C.

The “Elk Bugle Corps” program was created in 2007 to assist rangers with providing visitor information on responsible elk viewing practices and elk behavior and to help with parking and traffic management. “Last year, the Corps included 58 volunteers from around the area. They donated over 5,000 hours of service and spoke with over 60,000 visitors who came to see the elk. Many of these volunteers are returning, some for their third year, but the volunteer program has room to grow,” said Mark LaShell, Cataloochee Park Ranger. The Park’s goal is to recruit and train a new cadre of volunteers who can commit to volunteering on a regular, recurring basis.

Each volunteer is being asked to work at least two scheduled, four hour shifts per month starting the last week in May through November. This target period is during high visitor use from late spring during the calving season through the end of fall color season after the elk mating period.

The program’s greatest need is for volunteers to work the afternoon shifts which will run from approximately 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. through the summer. “Although the elk are not as active at this time of day, Cataloochee Valley is still relatively busy and the volunteers have the opportunity to spend more time with individual visitors,” said LaShell.

The volunteers spend their time roving the valley and in past years, Bugle Corps volunteers used a gas-fueled ATV to shuttle around the valley. A zero-emissions neighborhood electric vehicle that was provided through a grant from the North Carolina Solar Center at North Carolina State University, combined with a donation by the Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is now used by the volunteers. “The environmentally friendly vehicle fits the needs of the Elk Bugle Corps perfectly,” he said.

LaShell commented, “We feel the program is a win-win situation. We continue to receive positive feedback from the Cataloochee volunteers who enjoy working is such a beautiful mountain valley and from visitors who receive a better experience having these volunteers to interact with in an otherwise remote area with no personal services.”

For persons interested, an informational meeting and new volunteer training session will be held in Cataloochee Valley at the Palmer Barn on Tuesday, May 5, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Potential volunteers are asked to RSVP to Ranger LaShell at 828/269-3161. If attending the training session, participants should also bring a bag lunch.

As part of his job Nolfi sometimes gets to patrol the park at night using a $5,000 state-of-the-art night vision system donated by a person who wanted to help out the park rangers. By way of these goggles, Dan’s enjoyed a view of the park that human being don’t normally get to have.

Whooo’s That?

“When I first got the goggles I wanted to test them,” he says.

“At the time we had an owl with an injured wing that we were keeping in a cage for a couple of days until the rescue people could come pick it up. We were keeping it in a closed garage that was pitch black when the lights were off. ”

“I flipped the lights out and put on the night vision. Both of us had these huge eyes collecting and magnifying every bit of the available light, which, without night vision looked like no light at all.”

“I walked around silently on rubber soles, but the owl’s head followed every little movement I made. He knew exactly where I was the whole time.”

Stealth Mode

It was full dark and we were sitting in the cab of a dark pickup truck in a heavily-wooded area of Cataloochee.

“Can I try them?” I ask.

“Sure,” he says.

I looked through them expecting them to be like the ones a friend of my father’s loaned us several years ago. He’d gotten them as Russian military surplus. They were fun. We could see possums in the yard. I expected everything to be very green and very blurry.

But, good grief, these were nothing like that. There was a bit of greenness to the image, but it was unbelievably sharp, far sharper than my normal daytime vision. Every single blade of grass was distinct and visible. In the dark!

“WOWEE” I said, “I had no idea.”

The mind reeled with the possibilities. “You could turn into a real freak with these,” I said. Nolfi nodded.

“Come clean,” I said. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done with these on?”

He smiled. “The only thing I’ve ever done is move behind a tree and let people walk by me without ever realizing I was there. That’s a strange feeling. But there are times you’d rather not get into a conversation.”

The Smokies Through Night Vision Goggles

“Its strange to sit in the woods and see what’s going on when the animals don’t realize you’re there,” says Dan.

“They might smell you, but if you’re downwind and you stay really still and quiet, they don’t know you’re there.”

“One night I was sitting in a gap waiting for pigs [wild hogs]. I had my night vision on and sat real still and quiet. Finally I heard something coming. I guessed it was a pig. I got excited and waited for it to walk into view. But it wasn’t a pig.”

“It was a bear. So, I stayed still and the bear continued on its way, paying no attention to me.”

“About thirty minutes later I heard something else coming. I just knew it was going to be a pig this time. But it was a deer. The deer didn’t care about me either.”

“I waited some more, at least another half hour, until I heard something coming. Surely it was a pig!”

“But this time it was a coyote!”

“In the space of maybe two and a half hours a bear, a deer, and a coyote had all walked right by me along the exact same trail. They had to have known each other had recently passed that way.”

“I never did see a pig, though.”

Don’t Even Blink

Fascinated, I asked Nolfi for more.

“Once I was sitting alone, being still and quiet with my night vision on and a deer came close to me. When the deer got real close, I blinked. When I blinked, the deer jumped.”

“The night vision scope covers only one eye. The other eye stays uncovered.”

“The deer had detected a single human blink! It saw me, but it hadn’t even realized I was a person until I blinked! If people don’t move, animals don’t know what they are!”

“With the night vision you get to see animals when they feel safe, doing things you’d not see them do if they knew you were there.”

“Even though my blink startled it, the deer didn’t run away, it grazed right next to me and then it eventually drifted off.”

Ghost Story

“You see some amazing things with night vision that you’d never see otherwise.”

“It can be disorienting. You get all these different things out there in front of you that you’ve not seen before. Sometimes you can’t interpret the picture right away.”

“One night I was sitting on a stump out on a knob in North Carolina when I noticed a pair of glowing eyes. In a few moments there were many pairs of them. Just these glowing eyes — and nothing else.”

“It was sort of scary. I thought what is that?”

“The eyes were bobbing up and down — in total silence. I stared and stared, but couldn’t see anything but eyes. So, I took off the night vision.”

“But then I couldn’t see anything at all. The eyes disappeared. There was not a sound being made either. I had no idea what I was seeing. I put the night vision on and took it off a couple of times and it was always the same. With it on there were all these pairs of eyes and with it off, nothing.”

“Finally I realized what it was.”

“Night-hawks. They’re not really hawks, they’re more like Whip-poor-wills. They do this strange thing where they pop up in the air a few feet and then flutter down. They do it over and over, little flocks of them, all bumping up and down.”

“It was really creepy. Their eyes glow. If you take off the night vision you can’t see or hear anything at all, but you put it back on and you see all these bouncing eyes out there in front of you.”