Quote:
Originally Posted by ColbyBruce
My wife decided we would hike to the top of Rabun Bald mountain today, so off we went. Most of the trail up was narrow and basically a tunnel through the rhododendron, about 1/4 mile from the top, my wife froze. The air was very pungent, sort of like a swamp of urine, and something off the trail gave a deep, guttural growl that certainly was neither cat or dog. We sort of moved along at a good clip after that, came across another whiff of the smell further up that was considerably weaker, as though it was starting to fade.
We warned another hiker we met at the top and headed back down about an hour later. We did not hear, smell or see anything on the way back. But I was concerned.
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I've been fairly close (within a few feet) to a few live black bears, and in direct contact with a few that were very recently deceased, and never noticed any peculiar smell. Coyotes sometimes smell pretty rank, mountain lions often smell of skunk spray, elk often emit a sort of pungent odor, and our locally smallest "big game", javelina, are often as easily smelled as seen, but none of these examples pertain to the locale you mentioned. Maybe member BearBio will weigh in with other experience...