Standing Indian Campground.

“My wife and son and I are going to spend a few days (mabye as many as five) at Standing Indian Campground. Our first visit. Any of you guys familiar with it?

Neither my wife nor my son hike. So I'll be doing some lone dayhiking. Any good loops up there? I want to see Pickens Nose, for sure. But I hear it's only a side trail.

If you can suggest any good loops from, or near, Standing Indian Campground, let me know.

Also, we'll probably take our canoe. Can you suggest a good place to take a canoe (not whitewater). Or a reliable shuttle service for a canoe trip?”

“the area is beautiful...but it was hot and rainy as crap when we were there...got lost cause the kimsey creek trail kinda gets overgrown...we took it to the AT up to the shelter, and the next day to standing indian mtn, and down Lowe trail....bring a parachute....cause that trail is straight down, and nothing but suitcase sized rocks...

great trail though...don't know of anything shorter or easier, since that was my only hike in the area.

(above is from memory, and most of it has been drank away)”

“MDSHiker knows this area pretty well...hopefully he will see the thread and chime in tomorrow.”

“It's a great area. The tent camping sites are carved out of rhoddie thickets. Nice loop is the Kemsey Crk, AT, and something like LOng Trail. They can help you with that at the ranger station. It's about 10-12 miles with about 3000' elevation gain and loss. You peak out about 5500' if memory serves.

There is a side trip to a huge yellow poplar tree.

A creek runs through the campground.

That's about all I can think of this early.”

“It's dead, now. Completely dead.

I asked an arborist who I know about it, and he was really pissed that the National Forest and every other organization around referred to it as "the world's second largest poplar". Apparently, it was nowhere near the "second largest" poplar, and he claimed that it was, in fact, not one tree, but several trunks that had fused. Looked like one tree, to me, but I'm not an arborist.

Anyway, it's dead. Still standing, but dead.

Thaks for the information. Sounds like a good loop. I really want to bag as many peaks as I can while we're there.”

“The Kemsey Crk trail is very pretty. Once it hits the AT it's about 3/4 of a mile to Standing Indian Shelter. From there it's maybe another mile to the peak. Good view, but don't recall the direction. From there you lose all of the elevation in about 4 miles. It's straight down. My wife and I did this loop in the rain. She didn't enjoy sliding down 3000' over 4 miles.”

“A bunch of us did the Standing Indian Loop a couple years ago.. Kristina, Jill, John, me.. Jerbear too I think.. at any rate.. went up and over the firetower route.. using one approach to get up.. another to get down.. I don't have a map in front of me.. but it's a fairly common route to take from what I understand.. from John's description above -- I'd say that's the SAME exact route we did when we went.. easy approach.. At.. shelter.. overnighter.. walk up to the firetower.. with a little bouldering along the way both up..and down.. and fairly easy walk down back to where we started using a longer trail as a I recall.. it wasn't my trip.. SonicJill set it up... but we all had a really good time.. I can't remember this guys name.. but we were fortunate to have a celebrity of sorts Saturday night at the shelter.. he's done the AT a few times.. written a couple books.. does a lot of stuff for underprivileged children now.. a really really nice guy.. somewhat British accent.. a guy like Wingfoot, but it wasn't him.
last edited: 6/17/05 12:19:00 PM”

“Funny, you should mention Pickens Nose. My father's great-great grandfather owned that peak and about 600 acres from that peak and on down the Betty's Creek valley acquiring it back about 1835.
last edited: 6/17/05 9:44:03 PM”

“suggest USFS map Southern Nantahala Wilderness and Standing Indian Basin. I have hiked the AT but would like to explore the valleys”

“We just got back from Standing Indian. Had a blast hiking and canoeing up there!

The most exciting thing, though, was a nasty problem bear who came into our campsite thirty minutes past midnight two evenings ago. I had all of my food items stored safely away in my truck. The only things I left under the canopy over the picnic table were my stove and cast iron pots (all scrubbed) and metal cooking implements and various non-food items in plastic bags.

My wife and I were awakened by a loud CRASH! and we immediately knew what was going on. I shined a light out of our tent to see the biggest wild bear I have ever seen. At least a 400 pounder. He was just HUGE! He was peeling the lid off of a plastic container full of metal cooking stuff--spatulas, tongs, etc. I yelled at him and came out of the tent and he ducked into the rhododendron (we were at site #13 for those of you familiar with the campground). So we turned on a couple of lanterns and got busy cleaning up.

Whereupon I heard my wife scream as the bastard emerged from the rhododendron not five feet from her. He was bound and determined to finiish opening every plastic container we had--whether we were there, or not.

Visions of Treadwell in my mind, I hustled my wife into the cab of the truck and jumped in behind her. I fired up the engine and revved it, and this finally succeeded in scaring him away. He ducked again into the rhododendron and emerged in front of the truck and made haste into the woods and the campsites beyond.

In about thirty minutes, though, he entered the campsite next to ours (#12) and frightened the campers there enough so that they ended up sleeping in their car. (They had no gargage or food out, either.)

The next morning the campground host told us the bear had terrorized the campers from one end of the campground to the other. He's very large, very aggressive, and I assume something will have to be done, eventually, or he will end up injuring someone. I yelled and stood my ground, and he had no problem with facing me down. Not a good sign for such a big bear.

He appeared fat and healthy in all other ways.”

“Yikes!!

I posted a similar story on here a while ago and got hell for putting the food in the car.

That's not considered "safely away". Gotta bear bag ... even on commercial camp sites!

I know how crazy that can be.

Glad you both made it out in one piece!”

“1. A used stove will have food odors.
2. Pots and pans, even washed, will likely have food odors and perfume odors from the soap.
3. All packages and containers, including plastic bags, may contain food. The bear does not know until it checks.

Bears have demonstrated the ability to detect about 26 different, minute odors from miles away. It is almost impossible to hide anything from it. The usual instructions are to keep things in a trunk. If the bear can see containers that might contain food in a vehicle, it might just enter the vehicle. From experiences the bears associate coolers and other containers, even backpacks, with food. If they can see any such objects inside a vehicle, they are capable of opening the vehicle. They just dig their nails into the metal and peel sections back(like taking the skin off an orange). It's somewhat like opening a can of sardines.

At trailhead and campgrounds I try to keep coolers and other food, eating and dishware items in the car's trunk, out of sight. I have seen a bear open an empty cooler. At trailheads I usually spread a tarp over the entire inside of the car. Out of sight seems to work with both bears and with human thieves.”

“is a dead bear.Bears have an unreal sence of smell. Sounds like this bear won't be long for the world.”

“It has been proposed that thruout the world, large blocks of land be walled for wildlife.

By 'walled' is meant like the Great Wall of China. Take substantial wild areas wherever possible and construct a continuous wall around those areas to keep the animals in and encroaching human activities out, although hiking would be fine within the 'walls'. Creeks and rivers would present a real problem with this construction so it would best be done in upland areas (like the South Mountains of NC) with dams at the creeks and rivers. It would be very expensive but may be the only way to maintain truly wild ecosytems on an increasingly crowded (with people) planet

and it would be a place to take problem bears and threatened animals from other locations in the world whose native habitats have been eliminated.

You might call these areas zoological parks, yes, very big ones up to hundreds or thousands of square miles.

The entire Yellowstone region might be a good candidate for such a wall. I know many are working for viable migration routes from Yellowstone to the Yukon but such appears increasingly unlikely with all the construction in Montana.
last edited: 6/26/05 7:00:05 AM”

“The world's ecosystems are burning down around our ears. And we do nothing but continue to eat the Earth. Tourists are rushing to Alaska to see glaciers "before they're gone". Entire tree species are dying by the grove here in the East as people run to the last remaining stands to see them before they're extinct.

Walling off patches of woodlands won't do anything but create more problems. Damming creeks and rivers would merely create more destruction of even more ecosystems--it's a stupid idea.

What's needed are fewer humans consuming fewer resources.

But humans are led by greedheads who take advantage of the ignorance of those they control to remain wealthy and in power. The last patches of wilderness are fading away like sick patients. Soon those, too, will be gone and the human race will be lonelier in its own mad dash toward extinction.”

“I agree with you Bob.

The costs of walling off wild areas would be much greater than simply buying out huge additional areas and allowing the human residents to voluntarily relocate.

But, with neanderthals like Representaive Charles Taylor of WNC, who is the powerful chairman of the House Agricultural Appropriations Committee in charge, the battle is not even recogized much less being fought. Representative Taylor has the position to do much to maintain the wildness of WNC but he is allied with the very people who are promoting the commercial and residential development of this area.

He is even the one who is sponsoring the bill to bisect the wilderness of the GSMNP with another major highway.
last edited: 6/26/05 8:53:09 AM”