Date: 2012-04-20
From: Brown Fork Gap Shelter

To: Fontana Dam Shelter
Miles today: 12.7
Weather: light rain

Woke up early today to hike like crazy in my attempt to make the rather short Fontana Dam Post Office hours.  I left at 7:15 and cruised.  I didn't cook last night and just ate snack food for breakfast today.  I can always feel the caloric deficit when I skip a meal and need to play catch-up all day to fix it.  Two weeks in and I am already on the margin there.  My feet are starting to blister a bit from all the soggy trails and high-output miles too.  Slower miles would be better but I just can't risk it today.  I cruise up and over a ton of rollers and eventually get to the big downhill stretch before the dam.  it takes forever.  You can see the dam, you can hear the cars and the boats, you can smell the road.  The switchbacks and steps are a tease because you always seem to hit a hill that erases the work you just did.  It is as if the dam gets further and further away.  I finally get to the road, safely cross this two-lane deathway, and see one of the women from the rainy night in the shelter.  We exchange pleasantries and I am sure she doesn't even recognize me as the person who helped her and her mother get a spot inside that night.  I call a shuttle, clean up a bit in the bathroom, and see Rhyno and Easy Rider outside.  We fill out the Smokies' wildo permit form and wait on the shuttle. The shuttle takes us two miles to the village and we see Butcher in the parking lot. We meet his grandmother and her posse and head for the post office.  I get to the post office with plenty of time to spare and collect two of my three boxes.  The quilt is again mysteriously missing and unfortunately is also the keystone to my well-orchestrated gear change-out.  Several phone calls to the post master and a lot of looking things up plus cross referencing other sources and we find out it was delivered to Fontana Dam, Tennessee.  I kid, it was under the woman's chair and we found it a little while later.  I then had a gear explosion all over the covered awning in the shade and made things right.  My Mom even inserted a special note with some of her favorite quotes which brought a tear to my eye.  I guess I got a little sentimental.  I collected myself, shipped home my dead weight, and prepared for a beer and a burger.  I instead had a goat cheese salad with a chipotle lime dressing and a BLT on wheat with potato salad.  I also had a local beer, the Shiva IPA, to wash it all down.  We split up after lunch, I resupplied my food for the Smokies, and we met back up at the road to try and hitch back to the trail.  It was hard on a Friday afternoon and it seemed the only traffic was this Mazda car club running the turns.  They didn't want us in their sweet tuned-up cars but eventually a nice guy in a pickup truck with a fishing pole in the back let us load up his truck with our lives and our packs.  We hiked the mile or so to the next shelter, the Hiker Hilton, and were accosted by the group taking the alpha role.  Sigh.  Immaturity rules the roost sometimes.  Easy Rider pulls out some beers and we crack open a few cold ones and head outside to avoid the stupidity and awkwardness.  The evening is upon us and I walked to the dam with my ukulele.  No dinner again but I am tired and need sleep more.  I need to eat that food eventually though.  Carrying it doesn't do any good if you never eat it.  Right before nestling in for the night, I walked to the bathroom to charge the phone up a bit.  Yay for electricity.  A big ol' hydroelectric dam and we have one tiny outlet in the entire place.  I note how the rustic three-wall plywood privies seem so much cleaner than this muddy modern tiled bathroom.