Cataloochee Valley Hike

We started at Cataloochee Valley and some of us hiked 10 miles.  It was an easy/moderate hike.  Cataloochee is well-known for elk.  The elk were reintroduced the park and wear radio collars.  This is a national park (Great Smoky Mountains), so the elk are on protected land.  You must remain at least 150 feet away from the elk and can't bother them or enter the fields.  Elk mate in the fall and give birth in the summer.  Winter is a quiet time in that area.  There are other places to see elk, but Cataloochee Valley is the best.  When they mate, the males make a call known as bugling.  Rut is the term for when elk challenge other bulls, attract cows, and make their bugling call.  Their antlers also have a covering known as ''velvet.''  Once their antlers are fully develop, they shed the velvet.  Elk are known as bulls, cows and calves.  Read more about them here: http://www.nps.gov/grsm/naturescience/elk.htm.  There's a great picture on the NPS page, so please check it out.  It shows just how huge the elk can be....a 500-lb female is a BIG girl! :) This page has even more details about the elk, really interesting: http://www.nps.gov/grsm/naturescience/elk-facts.htm.  Now that I've seen elk in the valley, I can officially say my top 10 list is complete.  I think I should write a new one.