Date: 2015-04-14
From: Fontana Hilton Shelter

To: Spence Field Shelter
Miles today: 16.8
Weather: light rain

I woke before dawn to RAIN and took one last hot shower at the Fontana Hilton. Hands disappeared while I was packing my bag, so I put a note in his pack, then headed out across the dam. It was very pretty in the fog. Although dams are terrible in some ways (flooding, habitat destruction) they are incredible feats of engineering, and I love them. The Fontana dam is under construction, so the trail took a small detour around the visitor's center.After crossing the dam, I headed into Great Smoky Mountain National Park, depositing my thru-hiker permit in the dropbox. The system is strange in the park - hikers are required to sleep in shelters. Only if a shelter is full can they tent (and then only in the area around the shelter). Section hikers can reserve spots in the shelter and get preference over thru-hikers. If you are a thru-hiker in the shelter, and a section hiker shows up after you, they can boot you out into the rain or snow.I hoped the rainy forecast might discourage section hikers from heading into the park, so I wouldn't have to tent in the rain. I just hate packing up a wet tent.The day's hike started uphill after the dam. My huge pack was nearly crippling as I struggled to ascend (all that food!) and I was saturated with sweat within an hour. It was not fun. As the morning wore on it became clear that I had overindulged yesterday in trail magic and my huge mail drop. My stomach was strongly protesting my unhealthy and huge diet. This was made even worse by my pack's hipbelt, which squeezes my midsection very tightly. Right about my hips. It tends to squeeze my bladder, and today my bowels.The first shelter was nearly 12 miles away. I got to it, peered in to find it mostly full and incredibly stuffy (I later heard a lot of complaints about the smoking from hikers whp departed that shelter in the morning) and decided to move on. I regretted this after ten minutes when my stomach pains returned. Luckily the next shelter was only about 2.5 miles away. I could get there in an hour and a half, I told myself. I could wait an hour and a half.So on I went, through the mud. I passed three men on horseback, their mounts chewing up the trail with their hooves and spooking at my umbrella. I stood out of the way, beckoning them forward, not wanting to trouble them but hoping they would hurry up so I could make it the last mile.I got to the second shelter and heard a yell. Again, I peeked inside, exhausted, to find Frozen Mac, who had blown past me during the first hours of the morning as I hobbled uphill with my sore tummy. "I have to find the bathroom!" I cried as she greeted me and invited me in. "I'll be back."I found the signboard and followed the arrow towards the "toilet area". Searching wildly for signs of a privy, I could only see wads of toilet paper littering the forest floor. I checked my guidebook pages (I made a convenient pocket by sewing my little pack cover pouch on my hipbelt). THERE WAS NO PRIVY AT THIS SHELTER. I almost died.I didn't care that it was raining even harder at this point, or that I had to climb uphill, or that my feet were aching. I did NOT want to dig a poop hole in the rain. I did not want to navigate the muddy, slippery TP minefield. I unbuckled my hipbelt, letting my sore gut hang free, and slogged through the mud the next three miles to the next shelter. Sometimes three miles doesn't seem like a lot. But in the rain and the mud and after I had already hiked nearly 14 miles, those 3 miles took FOREVER.Lessons learned: Stop eating trail magic junk food. Stop at the first privy. Expect horrible hiking in the rain.I AM SO THANKFUL THIS SHELTER HAS A PRIVY. And that I am now warm and dry, and that the skies are clearing.