Black Bear, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

It's not easy to capture a Black Bear in the Park especially with Rangers about. They don't want you to invade their habitat which is fine with me. In this particular instance, this Bear was peering out at a group of hikers as they made their way up the half mile trek to Clingman's Dome. It's the highest point in the Park and normally you won't see a Black Bear on the trail.

Except this day there was one and the Ranger was not happy it was too close to the trail. He monitored its presence and finally another Ranger showed up to hike onto the Appalachian Trail which runs across the trail to the Dome to see if he could move the Bear farther from the trail and away from visitors. I stopped long enough to take this image and moved on up the trail to the top of the Dome. ENJOY!