Hiking along Middle Prong

So yesterday afternoon I finally managed to motivate off my rear end and get into the mountains for a short hike up Middle Prong Trail.  Geeky GPS and heartrate data.  Overall the hike was pretty nice.  After the first mile or two, there weren't many people on the trail, and the weather was surprisingly mild.  Lots of tree cover meant cooler than expected temperatures.  Once I made it up to Indian Flats Falls, I caught something out of the corner of my eye.



Hmm... what's that?



Let's get closer!


It's a blurry salamander!  Sweet!  It turned out that the place was crawling (pun intended) with salamanders.  

There were also a bunch of little crayfish.


I have more salamander shots I need to edit, but here's one last one that I really liked (it was really late in the day, so there wasn't much sun):


Going back down the trail I kept the camera out and managed to get some shots of bugs and flowers.


Now, the most exciting part of my trip was actually the drive back, and unfortunately doesn't feature any photographs.  As I was driving back towards Tremont, I saw a shape dashing down the mountain on my left side.  Moment later, a black bear ran right out in front of my car!  I managed to slam on the brakes, and skidded another 10 or 15 feet down the gravel road.  Luckily, the bear was a quick little bugger and was across the road before I was anywhere close to it.  Unfortunately the road is barely wider than one lane, so I didn't feel good about just stopping and getting out to take pictures.  The nearest pull off was a couple hundred feet down the road, and by the time I reached it, the bear was just about across the river already.  So, no photos, but the closest I've ever seen a bear out in the wild!