Date: 2017-04-15
From: Sassafras Gap Shelter

To: Walker Gap
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Though I went to bed feeling great, one session of yoga can only do so much to make up for days of hiking, so I woke up just about as sore as usual. We did have the loudest snorer I've ever heard in the shelter last night... Liz diagnosed him with distruptive sleep apnea on the spot, but it basically meant that it sounded like Godzilla was sleeping in the shelter. All in all, I can't legitimately complain since I chose to sleep in the shelter, so food for thought in the future.I finished packing a few minutes before Liz and so headed out before her in order to climb the 1.2mi to the first summit to get some cell signal to post a journal entry. The climb didn't take long and wasn't steep except for the last section, and soon I was standing atop Cheoah Bald and admiring the views to the north and west. I definitely want to camp on a bald at some point soon to get the great sunset, sunrise, and stars from the top but won't get to until after the Smokies (which has restrictions on where camping is allowed).Liz arrived a couple minutes after I finished posting, and so we headed out. We chatted all morning which made the miles pass quickly, the conversation flowing for hours through a myriad of topics.Soon enough we could see and hear Stechoah Gap and as we completed the decent we caught sight of a bunch of hikers gathered around a very full picnic table. Could it be???? Yessss!!! TRAIL MAGIC!! We dropped our packs and dug into the apples, bananas, crackers, and Gatorade that had been left for us when the trail angle himself, Quest, pulled up in his truck with more bananas. Quest had hiked in 2004 and was giving back to the trail as he had been given to during his hike. As the hikers went around and introduced ourselves it turns out that Quest has been seeing my posts on trailjournals. Shoutout to Quest for awesome trail magic!I honestly didn't think that anyone other than those I had sent the link to were reading, so that was a big surprise. Remember to sign the guestbook!Liz and I reluctantly turned down his offer for a shuttle into Robbinsville for the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet, since we had just been at NOC the day before, but several hikers did take him up on his offer as we hit the trail again.The next section of trail was named "Jacobs Ladder", which I was hoping indicated the presence of ladder rungs driven into the rock or at least a steep rocky accent that required scrambling. It turns out that its just a steep portion of trail and was unremarkable enough that we missed the turnoff to the cliffs right after it, which is where we had planned to lunch. Instead we headed down to the shelter, refilled on water, enjoyed lunch (I tried spam for the first time, solid eh), and ate the survived-jacobs-ladder fruit snacks I had been saving for the top (which we hadn't eaten since we hadn't noticed the ladder at all).We again hit the trail and chatted the afternoon away (and by that I mean that Liz did most of the talking, which is fine by me). We saw two ~5ft rat snakes along the trail (which slithered away harmlessly... they're not poisonous) right before we pulled into Cable Gap Shelter. Our plan was to eat dinner here before doing a couple more miles in the evening/night to put us in a good position to reach Fontana early and get breakfast. After finishing dinner (mashed potatoes with chicken, goldfish, and Ritz with a dessert of Snickers) we hung around and rested. Just before we were about to leave a man came into camp with the funniest looking pack I had ever seen... he was carrying a large red box that looked sorta like the kind pizza delivery drivers use to keep pizza warm and his backpack was very square and almost looked like a cooler. He entered camp and dropped his bags in the shelter and started asking if we had seen someone named Mustardseed, who had apparently, somehow, without cell signal at the shelter, ordered pizza. Unable to find Mustardseed and unwilling to carry the pizzas back down the mile of trail he had carried them up from the road, he told us that we would have to dispose of them, as well as the sodas and beers in his backpack and the cookies he had brought. TRAIL MAGIC!!!!Ok, so the name of this over-dedicated delivery guy is actually Mustardseed and he lives locally and does this magic every so often. He thru hiked last year to raise money for a couple of charaties and does this trail magic as outreach to raise awareness about the organizations with hikers in the hopes that they'll help him raise money. He's currently raising money for Friends of Barnabus (fobf.org, usual disclaimer: I haven't visited their site or looked at their content, just passing on what I was told).After Liz and I finished our second dinner we hit the trail again, taking our time on the last 3 miles for the day. As we crested the ridge we caught our first sight of Fontana lake, a massive lake that fills the contours of the valley it occupies, held in place by the massive Fontana dam at it's western end. I've seen the dam in a lot of YouTube videos of thru hikes, since it's a popular landmark, but they fail to capture it's size (which I'm sure will be even more evident when we cross it tomorrow morning). We continued moving as the sun sank towards the horizon and before we knew it came to a small gap with 2 tent sites, our home for the night. We dropped our packs and raced up a side trail to catch the sunset, and though part of it was blocked by an inconveniently placed hill, Liz and I watched as the sun's orange color spilled into the sky, fading to peach and purple in the clouds and mountains around it as the sun sank below the horizon. Only after the vibrant colors began to fade did we head back to our bags and setup our shelters, change into camp clothes, and hang our bear bag. After finishing we took a moment to appreciate the stars above before retreating to our tents. This is both of our first times camping in as small a group (2), which although largely the same as what we're accustomed to, has a different feeling than camping at a shelter with ~20 others around. We'll see how it goes.Liz has blisters on her heels... I'm hoping that doesn't prevent her from hiking like it did with Lookout. She's a trained medical professional, but unfortunately there's not a ton that can be done for blisters medically, so we'll have to see how they affect her. Though we'll definitely be splitting up when her mom joins her after the Smokies, it would be nice to not have to split earlier due to injury.