Date: 2003-04-12
From: Brown Fork Gap Shelter

To: Fontana Dam shelter
Miles today: 12.7
Weather: clear sky

Brown Fork Gap Shelter to Fontana Dam shelter. I talked to Marcus the night before this and because the post office was only open 8-12, Marcus decided that he wanted to make a run for the post office or else we would have to sit and wait for Monday for our stuff. So, I agreed to make the run for the post office with him before it closed. I woke up at 5:30 am and I woke him up too. Mary, Tucson, wanted to go as well. We started off at 6:40 in the morning which was just before it got light. Marcus put on a punishing pace, it was everything I could do to stay with him. Unfortunately, we left the shelter so fast that I¢d forgotten to go to the bathroom and it got worse and worse and worse and worse until I had to finally tell them to keep on going..that I had to stop. By this time, I was in desperate need. I could not get my backpack off fast enough. I was trying to rip stuff off and find the toilet paper and couldn¢t find the toilet paper. I was just about to have a heart attack. All this took time. I looked at the clock, looked at the mileage and decided that I was not gonna be able to make it in time to the post office. So, I popped on this road. It was a road that I could get to town on and find them. It¢s called yellow blazing when you take shortcuts on roads. I should have taken the trail. That¢s called yellow blazing when you hitchhike or whatever, some people consider it cheating. But, it¢s been explained to me that it¢s necessary and if there¢s a purpose to do that then it is not cheating. If you did everything possible to stay on the trail and if you had a good enough reason to vary from that, then that¢s acceptable. So, I started walking on the road. I¢d been walking fast and ended up walking 5 miles trying to hitchhike and nobody would pick me up. I would stick my thumb out to hitchhike and they thought I was waving at them, because they would just wave. Smile and wave and keep on driving. Finally, on the road leading to Fontana Village, where I¢d turned on to, a truck stopped and picked me up. An English guy with a motorcycle in the back of the truck. Really nice guy. He was just out for the day. I got to the post office by 10:30 in the morning. Which was great, but it would have been better if my mail drop had shown up. But it never made it. I was not about to wait until Monday to get the stuff so I shopped at the really crappy store. Just terrible supplies that I had to get and an even worse cashier that had a bad attitude. It was just not good at all. The food was crappy and my pack was heavy. So, I sat around from 10:30 (oh and Big Paw did manage to make it into town to get his drop) so I hung out there and waited until 2 o¢clock when Bob and his girlfriend finally showed up. He took Josh and Rachel and I into Albertsonville to shop in there. We stopped at Popeye¢s. I had popcorn shrimp and catfish. Just pigged out. So, I hung out with Bob and he had brought Corona¢s which was excellent of course and then he dropped us back off at the shelter. The three of us walked a couple of miles to Fontana Dam which was a beautiful shelter. The nicest one I¢ve seen on the trail so far. Fontana Dam shelter was built with money donated by a previous thru hiker. This place had a double level, a complete walk through hallway with double levels of sleeping. Built out of very nice wood. Very clean. The area around the shelter was terraced with various levels of rock. Rock which was excellent to set up a tent on. A water fountain was attached to the building which was great. No having to hunt down water from a creek hundreds of yards away. A real nice fire ring. Very great place. Actually a lot of people were here at this place. Most of them decided to tent because the tenting was so good. So the shelter was actually not even close to full. The great thing about the Fontana Dam Shelter was also that it was right there by the Dam and the Dam is a tourist attraction so they had bathrooms there. They had a telephone. They had showers, which is turning out to be a real luxury on the trail. All of this was a half a mile from the shelter with very easy access down a road. So, all the hikers that were there took full advantage of the showers. Really a beautiful place.