Day 16, 6-30

Caleb and I started off the day by climbing a mountain. Nothing new in that, because that's what we'd been doing for about two weeks now. But this mountain was Rocky Top, in the Smokies. And we emerge on the top of Rocky Top to a breathtaking vista of folded mountains and cerulean skies. We dropped our packs, looked around, and said: wow. a few times. and then we just looked. It was a moment to numb the brain with the immensity of the world. It was the first time I was able to continue taking pictures while moving a little, to get an entire 360 view of the grandness around us. It was truly gorgeous.
We kept walking. Around...lunchtime, perhaps? Afternoonish? We run into a shelter with some trail magic! There was a Backpacker's Pantry Chocolate Cheesecake freeze dried Glorious Tasty Dessert of Joy. We made it immediately. And then reveled in eating it. We lay back, on the grass, and let the sun soak into us for a while, just indolently lounging in the wonderful greatness of it all.
After a while, we had to get moving again. It was near this time that I had...well, a guy we had met earlier told us: 'watch out for the Smokies! They'll open your mind!' I hadn't thought of it much at the time, other than a very cursory 'yeah whatever', but this day sorta changed my mind completely about that. I was walking along after Caleb, and we were in the midst of these trees...short little things, I guess it was getting too high up for them to do well in that climate, so they didn't have many mid level branches, only a fluffy top and scraggly trunk, so it was very shade-and-light mottled, while we had been in shade for a while. Due to the abundance of light, there was a great abundance of grass on the ground. Not really on the trail, but thick, long, whispery grass. These little white moths kept flitting out of them when Caleb passed, and they would catch the light and shine and glimmer as they fluttered through the air. I walked and walked and looked and saw and knew that the Earth was Beautiful and Simple and Elegant. It was Beautiful in it's Simplicity, and Elegant in the Simple Beauty, and Simple in the Elegant Beauty of the World around me. I walked and I looked and I could feel the Beauty radiating from every leaf of grass, every brilliant moth, every tree and leaf. The air around me radiated Glory, and I basked in it. Reveled in it. Exalted in it.
It was in this mental state that we swung into a shelter that we were considering sleeping at, but it was full of dayhikers. Dayhikers can be awesome (great source of Trail Magic, if they know what the deal is), or they can be really annoying because they don't understand the Leave No Trace Principle and they don't really understand why we long distance hikers do what we do. So we moved on to the next shelter. At this shelter was a deer that had grown far too comfy with humans, and was munching on the tall grass around our shelter with only an occasional eye on us. So we took pictures.
Oh! We also saw some more bears today! Momma said move, and the cubs moved (to where, I don't know), but then momma snuffled again, and the poles were flying as C and I made our way past with all haste...it's something else to hear a bear snuffle at you with defensiveness. You're on even ground out there. I can't imagine what a grizzly would be like...quite...fear inspiring.

•

A shelter. We had to sleep in them. They were hard.












The ascent up Rocky Top. Neat little meadows dotted the trail.












The Trail totally went through an arch of branches. It was awesome!

















One of the panorama Pictures...













Another Panorama













Another...can you see what I loved it?













Caleb!













Bobbin and Oops.













More great scenery













And again!













A tree fell on Caleb. But he caught it, then tossed it off the trail. He's a beast...what can I say?















No, really...

We are tired. We are happy. Glorious!













Clingman's Dome. Tomorrow!













Another vista before bedtime.


















C in front of a real life actual factual Christmas Tree! Oh, they smelled marvelous!

















The deer of Closeness


















More of the Deer of Closeness. You can see the AT Hiker's Handbook in my pack.

Day 15, 6-29

So we woke at the Fontana Hilton fairly early. C because he was uncomfy in the shelter, and I because I heard him crunching on the rocks that are around the shelter. Or So Close wanted to get an early start and woke us. Regardless, we woke early, and wandered down to the Fontana Dam Visitor's Center, where we were planning on calling a shuttle and getting picked up to go into Wesser. There was little to no traffic on the road, so hitching was out, and we wanted a sure ride, even if we had to toss a few bucks to get it. We show up at the center, and its closed. Moreover, it won't open until 9, and it was like, 730. There were bathrooms with showers in them, so I took my dirty self to those with some camp soap, showered and washed my clothing, which went right back on, then emerged. C went in to do the same, and soon after he came out, a van swung by with some guys. They had gotten a shuttle from Hot Springs, and were doing the section from Fontana to Hot Springs. We talked to the shuttle driver, and he ended up giving us a ride into Wesser, the town nearby. C and I needed to pick up our mail (PO opens at 9...sigh), and we both wanted a large breakfast. We get into town, and its...frightening in its smallness. I can't express aptly how small this town was. It was tiny. Miniscule. Mote-like. There are almost more people in my family than live in that town. There was a general store, a PO, and a hotel. The hotel was very nice, and people go out there to get away from it all...little realizing that away from it all means that there's nothing nearby remotely resembling anything to do. Except hike an awesome trail. But if you're into that, you'd have gotten there the old fashioned way, and not stay at the hotel. Unless you really wanted to, because you needed to stay someplace and shower. I digress.
We wandered around a while trying to find a place to eat. The restaurant was closed, so we ended up going up to the hotel. We had only split a clif bar (I've a passion for splitting, I don't know why) at the shelter, so we were hungry at this point. Very much so. The hotel had a restaurant. The restaurant was open. Caleb and I were happy. We ordered, and lots of food came out. And we finished it all. I don't think I could have in real life, but this was a special occasion. Caleb got some perfect French Toast. It looked perfect. Exquisite. Slabs of soft bread dusted with powdered sugar and radiating toasty brown tastiness. I ordered...something large. I forget what, but I had syrup. Pancakes, perhaps? I'm going with those. My syrup was in a little ramekin, and when I saw it, I thought: I'm going to finish that. And everything else on my plate. So C and I shoveled in, were silent for a while as we shoveled, and then sat back, replete and satiated. Then we wandered over to the PO. We were warned the lady was cranky, so we were very polite, and she was as well, so I think the people just annoyed her. We picked up our stuff, sorted through it all, picked up a few items (cheese) at the general store that we needed that couldn't be mailed, and called the shuttle. Wandered back over to the Dam, and set off towards the Smokes.
The Smokies...mmmm...incredible. Early on in the trip, we ran into a guy that said, 'you guys will really enjoy the Smokies. They'll open your mind'. I didn't believe him until the day after this one, when my mind was opened...it was crazy.
So the entrance to the Smokes isn't as magnificent as the Smokies warrant, but it starts off with a climb up Shuckstack mountain. This had been compared with the Jump Up from the NOC, so I was worried, but about an hour or two later we stood at (basically) the end of the climb, and thought: are we done already? It was a really simple climb, and one that convinced me my trail legs showed up. Which is nice. There was an awesome tower off the trail a bit, we had been told to go see it, and it was totally worth it. It was, I think, for fire-spotting, but had long since been discarded or unused or whatever. Anyway, we went up. It was awesome.
We came on down, continued our trek, and had some other interesting adventures. We saw our first bear! It was...incredible. So Close, because she was hiking by her lonesome, and quietly, had seen several at that point. C and I, because we made lots of noise, had seen none. But we're rolling along, we hear a big noise to our right and behind us, and lots of movement. Lots. Think...well...a bear running through lots of crunchy leaves. Its loud. I assume it was a mom, and the crunching was the cubs running away/up trees, but we didn't see them. Just momma's head, swinging around, interested in what was going on. We were torn between looking back and moving forward, because she was big. We only saw her head, and she was big. Big like woah. That was the first bear encounter. It was awesome.
A few hours later, we roll up to the first shelter. We were thinking of spending the night there, but quickly changed our minds. You have to spend your nights in the shelters in the Smokies, they have bear cables rigged up, and you hoist all your stuff up out of reach, then sleep in the shelter to minimize impact on the trail/surrounding area. This was great for the people who tented and stuff, but horrible for C and I. Our hammocks are the most comfy things ever, and not having them...sad times. So we show up, and there's a troop of Boy Scouts there. C and I look at each other, plop down on the bottom tier, and look at our map. There was another shelter maybe 2.5 miles down the trail...we eat some gorp and think it over. The boyscouts had various and sundry conversations that teenaged boys have. C and I were still thinking of stopping, until a conversation started about bears. One said he'd punch one in the face if it came into the shelter. Another gave an example of how he'd hold knives between his fingers, and then punch it. C and I moved on. Boyscouts. While there are good ones out there, the vast majority...sheesh.
Anyway, we keep going, and roll into the shelter to find So Close there already. We set up and sack out, then meet a few others. We had passed a guy with two sons of his on Shuckstack, and they ended up wandering in. Two ladies that were doing the smokies next, and then a guy from the UK who was spending a year in the States. He was leaving on July Fourth (a bi' ironic, me leaving for england on the 4th, isn't it?) for back home. He had been all over, climbing in Utah, hiking all over, and now was out for a few days before heading on back.
We're all eating dinner, or finishing up, or doing dishes, when So close looks up from her journal, and says, 'Guys, a bear!'. Everyone freezes and looks. There's a juvenile bear moseying down the trail, following the AT and ignoring us. It was surreal...he walked right by all of us, as we all watched him warily, moseying along. He stood about 3 feet high, didn't look that thick. His fur was black and tan striped, which was really neat, but a little odd too. Like a tiger, almost. Didn't make any sound as he went, just tottered along and disappeared down the trail, further down the road. Surreal, but totally awesome.
Then it was bedtime, and we discovered the mice. Mice in the Smokies are bold. This one scurried all around, amazing us with his acrobatic agility. I was very glad that my pack was the one hoisted this night.
This was also the first shelter we felt the effects of drought, and not having our own water filter. When we show up, they report to us that the spring is dry, and basically, its a drainage puddle we'll be drinking out of. So Close lent us her filter, so we were able to procure water, but it would have been a thirsty one if we hadn't found it.

The Smokies in the Morning from the Fontana Hilton. What a sight to wake up to.












The Smokies, and the level of Fontana Lake. It fell a lot...












Part of Fontana Dam













I think that's Clingman's Dome in the distance, but I'm not sure.












Fontana Lake again.













Here we go!













The Dam we just walked over. Its a long dam.













Fontana Lake, from the Shuckstack Tower













And again. I think we climbed up that ridge.













Picturesque Valley













The tower. Someone lived down there, you can see the old chimney on the right.












The Smokies...













The Tower


















Us, and an awesome sign. I loved it. We had to get a picture of it.












There was a bear around there somewhere! I'm not sure where, but that's where I took the picture in the bear's general direction.

•

Day 14, 6-28

So, today was the day we met April and had the conversation with her. I'm getting a wee bit confused on the time, but I do know that it was a long day. I'll have to revisit my journal to make sure everything is accurate, in the meantime, I'll say what I know actually factually happened. We started out about halfway between Wesser/The NOC/The Hot Bike Shop Girl, and Fontana Dam. We had purchased the Thru-Hiker Handbook thing from the ATC, it gives you waypoints and distances to all sorts of important stuff, like shelters, towns, water, stuff like that. The first section is measured from Springer to Fontana. So getting there would be a huge deal. It was 163 miles into the trail, so also a very good point to finally arrive at.
*Gross Alert* I'm going to talk about a blister I got. Its pretty disgusting, so skip down a bit if you don't want to read.
Alright, so I don't get blisters normally. If my feet stay dry, I can stay blister free ad infinitum. But we had been rained on fairly consistently over the last few days, and I developed a rather impressive blister, but not where anyone ever expects a blister to blossom. It was on my left foot. It started in between the bases of my big toe and pointer toe, and moved up between them. I don't know how it showed up between by toes, but there it was. I was kinda glad about that part, because the fluid could move when I weighted my foot. Speaking of fluid, it wasn't clear. I must have burst a blood vessel in there at some point, and so it was a nasty mix of blister-water and blood. So I had this bloody looking blister of death wrapping from the base of my toes to between them. It was very nasty, but never really bothered me...just kinda fascinating. Didn't know you could get blisters there.
*End Gross Alert*
Hee hee...so, we are trucking down the mountain, and Caleb's shin starts to hurt again. This was problematic, so we find a road crossing with benches and decide to take a few. He takes some vitamin I (ibuprofen, we munched it consistently early on, but gradually, as our bodies dealt with the punishment and adjusted, we no longer needed it), and we're sitting. There's this old guy at the intersection, and he starts talking to us. No particular reason, I think that's what you do when you're old: talk to random people about yourself, and assume they're interested. Anyway, we're having sporadic conversation, C and I are thinking about his leg, and some motorcyclists rumble by. They were very loud. They pppphththtth on by, and he turns to watch them, then turns back to us. And says...hmmm....next time I see you in person, I'll do the voice too, but for now, just imagine a gruff southern old man voice saying: 'They jus' like the noise. Tha's all. What they needs is a record. They'd be able to sit at home all day a listnen to that there record, goin' VAAm VAAm, and then they won't have to drive them things around. Yes sir, a good record'll keep um occupied.'
C and I agreed, took our leave, and then proceeded to laugh heartily when out of earshot. Silly motorcyclists just need a record, after all...
We meander on, and find ourselves nearing Fontana at a fairly impressive rate...I didn't know we were making such good time, but...well...we were. We emerge from the trail to a parking lot, and register for the Smokies. You need a backcountry permit for the Great Smokey Mountains, because there are a lot of people that go along, and the rangers want to be sure they know who's where. Because we were 'thru-hikers', we heard about a billion different things to do. Someone told us to register and then play dumb if a ranger asked us if we knew thru hiker season had closed. Someone else told us we wouldn't have a problem. Others, after the Smokies, told us that they never bothered registering. We registered anyway. Then we hike back into the woods for a bit, to emerge again on a road with a large Fontana Dam sign. We follow that along, to wind up at the 'Fontana Hilton', perhaps the best shelter along the AT. I haven't seen them all, but this one was impressive. Two tiers of bunks on two sides, water from a water fountain, showers nearby (at the visitors center, a small 10 min walk, bathrooms maybe 4 minutes away, it was pretty great. There was another hiker there when we showed up, someone doing similarly to what C and I were. Her trail name was 'So Close', and we ended up hanging out with her for quite a while. I'll see if its ok if I use her actual name, but for now I'll err on the side of caution and privacy. We spoke with her for a while about the town that was nearby (C and I were going to get a mail drop there tomorrow! Excited!), and about what we were getting ready to get ourselves into at the Smokies. C and I found out that we would summit the highest peak of the trail there, Clingman's Dome, at an impressive 6000 + feet. So that was very exciting. C opted to sleep in the shelter, but I couldn't give up my hammock, knowing that I had to sleep in the shelters in the Smokies, so I strung it up and had one more hammock night of bliss before the shelter agony.

•

•

There was a cloud that was rolling into this valley. It looked really amazing, a sold wall of white enveloping everything that stood in its way.










Now we're in the cloud. It was really neat...a very surreal experience. Its very quiet in a cloud, and all the noise we heard, we made ourselves. Its also kinda cool and kinda damp. I very much enjoyed it...it felt like we should meet someone from Lord of the Rings in the mist somewhere.







A cool tree.













This was a neat view at one point, before the cloud came. This is also where we met Record Man.











Fontana Lake wayyyyy in the distance













Fungus. C dared me to eat some, but that struck me as a terrible idea.












We've made it! 163 miles on the AT under our belt. Only about 2K left. The first major waypoint, check!

Day 13, 6-27

Caleb would kill me if I left this story out, and I kinda get a kick out of it as well, so here goes. Even though it is a touch embarrassing for me. So we woke up and trucked the little bit into the NOC. It was only about an hour out from the shelter, but we didn't feel like staying in the Hostel there, and didn't really appreciate how scrumptious their breakfast buffet was. If we had, we would have taken full advantage of it, and embarrassed ourselves. As it was, we had already gone through a significant amount of the granola that mom had sent us at Franklin (we ate so much...), so we needed a breakfast or two. We expected some sort of grocery, but there was nothing. So we wandered to the outfitters for more H2O, and some sort of resupply. We wanted water first, which is where this story takes off. Alright, so we walk in, reeking, hairy, and with our packs. We grew very attached to our packs, and even though everyone is looking at us surreptitiously, we aren't going to take them off. Its our life in those things. Anyway, we ask for water, they point us towards the bike shop and a sink there. •As we’re filling up, we start talking to the two other bike shop employees that are bumming about. One happens to be, in my estimation, a very attractive young lady. It had been a while since I’d had the opportunity to talk to any attractive young ladies, so I seize the day, as it were. I'm doing my best to be charming and all that, and she mentions that she had done some outdoor climbing recently. I ask where, she says, ‘The Ice Cream Parlor’ (climbs outdoors have very odd names on them), and I respond, ‘Oh yeah, that’s awesome.’ We converse a little more, then Caleb and I set off again. As we’re trekking out, Caleb asks me, ‘Greg, what’s the ice cream parlor?’ To which I respond: “I have no idea. I just wanted her to keep talking.” To which Caleb said, ‘Greg, you’re pretty hopeless.’ To which I agreed.
The resupply was odd...we just needed breakfast and munchies, so we both set our hearts on copious amounts of energy bars. So we each picked up about $30 of bars to tide us over. We glanced at the Ben and Jerry's but decided against it, and went with splitting a king sized snickers instead. We ate that, then I went in and bought another candy bar to split. We ate that. And then Caleb walked in to buy another candy bar, which we also split. In retrospect, we should have just picked up a pint and split it...even though it was like, 9-10 in the AM.
Anyway, we set out and encountered what I consider one of the hardest climbs of the trip. The Jump Up. It was from the Nantahala River to...way high up there. It was 6 miles of steady climbing. I consider it the hardest climb that C and I did, both in terms of brutal climbing and the fact that we did it all in pretty much one huge push (maybe a minor break here or there, but mostly just gutting it out). We flailed our way up and made it to this shelter and kinda collapsed. There were some boy scouts there, but they were actually cool (a rarity, boy scouts generally are annoying and know little to nothing of backpacking. I know you've got to learn somehow, and thats cool, but a lot of them have gone on a lot of trips, and still know nothing...its sad...). We talked with them for a bit, then the heavens opened up. Both C and I were glad we were at a shelter, and decided to eat lunch. Hey, it was 6 brutal miles from our candy bars...they were long gone.
I have an edit to make at this point...the April person I said we had met? We didn't bump into her until the 28th. We did meet this dude named Rocker today, who left neat trail log entries with rock lyrics (mostly classic stuff, great!) , and he had hiked with her for a bit, but he was rolling pretty fast, and she wasn't, so he was hiking on. Anyway, she's tomorrow. Not the day before. Whoops...
Btw, in answer to Toms question (I don't think I answered it last post): we did have a digital camera. I picked up a huge memory card (2 gig), and some batteries the day before, and carried an extra pair of batters with me. They managed to last pretty well, but we'd turn it on, take a picture, and then turn it off again immediately. Which is also what I did with my phone...turn on, call M and D, and then shut it down as soon as possible after the fact. It worked out, and the batteries lasted until the last week, when I finally had to change them.

A plaque to a firefighter that died fighting a forest blaze near there. We thanked him for his sacrifice to the forest and the AT.











My ringwraith picture.













This is us, after we finished the Jump up. We were tired. It was hard.












A gorgeous view of something cool. Not sure where this is...












This turtle was sitting in the middle of the path like, 'What? You wanna get by? I don't care! I'm taking over this path, and you got nothing to say about it! Bring it, I'll take you out!' So we took a picture of him, and it flattered him so much he didn't kill us when we stepped over him...

Day 12, 6-26

This was another rainy day. Luckily, the AM was pretty dry, so we were able to mostly dry out before it started sprinkling again. Its always nice to have a little dry spell before getting damp again. So we left our very new shelter, and had about...maybe 17 miles to get to the NOC and Wesser. (NOC = Nantahala Outdoor Company). We were doing well, and then Caleb's shin started acting up on him. This was worrying for both of us, neither of us wanted to leave...once again, that thought had to cross our minds, and it isn't one of the most pleasant thoughts ever, that's for sure. Since it hadn't been that long since Franklin, we figured that we would take an extra day or so to get to this point. When we set out, as I mentioned, it was pretty dry. This was a day that both C and I noticed a phenomenon that we had never witnessed and had pertain to us. Usually we get a nice background chatter of stuff, bugs, birds, and random other noises of the forest. It was doing that rather nicely, then all of a sudden, it got really quiet. We look up, and the clouds are looking grim. Very grim. We don't get our stuff on yet, I don't think, but start hauling. We cover some serious ground in a ridiculous amount of time...we were at least pushing 3, dare I say 3.5 mph? On foot, with a pack, that's doing really well. We didn't make it out of the woods though, and it ended up raining on us. Sigh. Oh well. We hit a shelter, it had two people there that we talked to for a while. Caleb was hurting fairly consistently, so we were toying the idea of calling it a day, even though it had been a really light day. The people were day-hikerish, and didn't seem thrilled at the idea of us sticking around. Anyway, a few minutes later, a SOBO (SOuth BOund) hiker comes trucking through. She's named April, and she was hilarious. I think we stayed there for 15-20 minutes, and the only word we got in edgewise was 'mole'. She was super excited about everything, and it was really fascinating to watch. Anyway, she encouraged our continuation into the NOC, or at least the shelter very close to the NOC. We decided to go on a little farther and see how Caleb's shin felt. Started out, and he said it felt good, so we began our long descent into the valley. It was long. We just kept going down and down and down...I think it lasted, all told, about 6 miles. There was a shelter maybe...a mile? a little less? from the NOC that we were aiming for, and we showed up in decent time. I hate going down, but it wasn't too bad. Set up far from the shelter, because the shelter was pretty old and gross seeming. We ate there, I asked C about his shin, then we retired to our hammocks. There was a guy that had come through while we were in the midst of dinner, he mentioned to us that the hemlocks were all being eaten by the Woolly Blight. It's a bug that'll get them eventually, but doesn't start munching on them until after they're about 9-10 years old. Its sad. They're wonderful trees.

The ridge line we were on.













Gobs more of those orange flowers













Another observation tower, and the Jump-Off, the long descent to the Nantahala River and the NOC











Me. I've got rain on my glasses.













We're shaking our fists at the rainclouds. Because we'd like it to be dry for just a little bit...












One more of the Nantahala Valley


















C took this. He's farther down than I. Oh, the Jump Off.












The trail curved around this fold in the mountain, so C kept going, and I took a picture of him after he got to the other side. It was pretty cool.