Double Springs Shelter, GSMNP

Re: Double Springs Shelter, GSMNP
I had a strange experience at this shelter in June several years ago. Another hiker I had met there just an hour earlier had been inside talking and swapping bear sightings. I had walked up within 40 yards of a sow with 2 cubs 3 days earlier on Welch Ridge while walking to Hazel Creek from Clingman's Dome to trout fish and he had seen 4 bears at different times on his thru hike of the GSMNP section of the AT. Then, after dark I come out of the shelter to use the privy, turn the corner and see an unidentified animal standing just a few feet in front of me and my first thought (given our conversation just minutes earlier) was "BEAR!" So I jumped like 3 feet in the air I think ..LOL..then realized it was just a Deer....LOL..The Deer just stood there as I walked by close enough to reach out and pet it. (I didn't pet it though). So I took care of my business in the privy, came out and saw that there were at least a dozen Deer standing around within 20 yards of me. I guess these Deer were so used to people in the GSMNP not bothering them that they had no fear of me whatsoever. It's experiences like this that make hiking such a rewarding past-time. I even enjoyed the bear sighting 3 days earlier because it resulted in no teeth or claw marks on my body and the bear also was left unharmed. She made a noise at my sight and her 2 cubs ran up a tree, she laid down in the trail and we watched each other for around an hour. I saw she wasn't gonna leave so I just went off the trail and made a wide circle around her and her cubs.