(3/5) Fontana Dam
Today was our last day in the Nantahala National Forest and our first day in the Smokies. The Nantahala forest has been nice but for the last couple days the trail has been somewhat poorly maintained: narrow and often blocked by fallen trees or overgrown brush. In general, the Nantahala forest has been beautiful, but I look forward to the very well maintained Smokies.
We spent last night in Brown Forks shelter. Since there were no camp sites we had to stay in the shelter itself, which wasn’t too bad since we had the shelter to ourselves. It was good to ease ourselves into shelter life as it is illegal to pitch a tent in the Smokies if there is room in the nearest shelter. Using shelters will save us time from pitching tents but we will be forced to sleep right next to whoever happens to be in the shelter that night. This won’t be a big issue but I am not excited about the idea of it.
Most of the day we were hiking toward Fontana Dam. It was cloudy and warm but the trail was quite steep. We spent about 5 miles descending into town, which is not great on our knees. Luckily our muscles got a descent rest on the downhill.
Once we reached Fontana we got a shuttle to a gas station for our resupply. The gas station was slightly expensive, but we got a ton of food to last us all the way through the Smokies (around 5 days). The guy who ran the shuttle was a previous through hiker who was very nice and gave us some good advice on the mental-toughness aspect of through hiking.
To leave Fontana we had to cross the dam. It was strange but cool to look at the lake and the mountains while standing on a concrete behemoth.
Finally we made it back into the woods and the start of the SMNP. We hiked several more miles before reaching our shelter. When we got there we realized that the shelter had about 6 other people in it, and that the shelter had a fire place. The other hikers already had a fire going, so we set up our sleeping stuff and ate dinner.
Tomorrow we will hike our first full day in the SMNP, and we hope that the weather will improve. Tonight should be pretty cold.
Goodnight.
Walker
We spent last night in Brown Forks shelter. Since there were no camp sites we had to stay in the shelter itself, which wasn’t too bad since we had the shelter to ourselves. It was good to ease ourselves into shelter life as it is illegal to pitch a tent in the Smokies if there is room in the nearest shelter. Using shelters will save us time from pitching tents but we will be forced to sleep right next to whoever happens to be in the shelter that night. This won’t be a big issue but I am not excited about the idea of it.
Most of the day we were hiking toward Fontana Dam. It was cloudy and warm but the trail was quite steep. We spent about 5 miles descending into town, which is not great on our knees. Luckily our muscles got a descent rest on the downhill.
Once we reached Fontana we got a shuttle to a gas station for our resupply. The gas station was slightly expensive, but we got a ton of food to last us all the way through the Smokies (around 5 days). The guy who ran the shuttle was a previous through hiker who was very nice and gave us some good advice on the mental-toughness aspect of through hiking.
To leave Fontana we had to cross the dam. It was strange but cool to look at the lake and the mountains while standing on a concrete behemoth.
Finally we made it back into the woods and the start of the SMNP. We hiked several more miles before reaching our shelter. When we got there we realized that the shelter had about 6 other people in it, and that the shelter had a fire place. The other hikers already had a fire going, so we set up our sleeping stuff and ate dinner.
Tomorrow we will hike our first full day in the SMNP, and we hope that the weather will improve. Tonight should be pretty cold.
Goodnight.
Walker
Comments
Post a Comment