Date: 2013-04-24
From: Fontana 28 AT Crossing

To: Birch Spring Gap, NC
Miles today: 7.1
Weather: clear sky

In the morning, before checkout at the Fontana Lodge, I walked upstairs to the breakfast lobby and had a large breakfast. I shared a table with a young Asian hiker named Jay, whom I had first passed in Georgia. Breakfast was followed by a hot stone massage scheduled at 10am. I checked out around 11:30 am, then waited in the lobby for my cache to arrive. The folks at the front desk said they expected delivery to be around 2pm, just in time for the afternoon forecasted storm to arrive. To kill time, I hiked down the hill from the lodge to the Fontana Pit Stop to enjoy a couple of sausage dogs, one smothered in chilly, and the other in sauerkraut, along with a large drink. It was only 1 pm when I returned. The delivery arrived at about 2pm. The box was quite heavy! The fun of having someone at home base delivering food, was never knowing what you'd receive, with exception to special requests. Britta had stuffed this package with a variety of delicious goodies including snacks from Trader Joe's. TJ's seemed to be nonexistent in the Appalachians and for this reason, it felt that a piece of home had been delivered, along with a lot of love. I repackaged food and got shuttled back to the Fontana 28 AT Crossing by 3pm. The clouds were dark. The storm forecasters predicted had arrived. I was anticipating rain any moment. A short distance over the ridge to Fontana Dam, the rain began to drop heavily. It continued as I crossed the Fontana Dam and entered the GSNP. Crossing the Dam required a small detour down a flight of steps, then back up to the top of the dam, due to maintenance. North of the dam, the AT passes a large sign marking the entrance to the Great Smokies National Park. The AT continued up a paved road at a moderate incline for a little under a mile to a small map kiosk with a gabled roof. I stood for a brief moment under the overhang, drenched, but relieved from the continual drops pelting my face. I searched for a box to deposit my permit, which I had purchased for 20 dollars and completed online in California, about a month before starting the hike. There was no place at the kiosk. I was now worried that I had missed the drop off point. At this point, I was not hiking back, especially in the rain, and into darkness. My goal was to get as far as I could in the park with a late afternoon start. I knew my only legal choice (since there was no stealth camping allowed anywhere in the park) was Birch Spring Gap. Not more than a few tens of yards up the trail, was a steel pipe with slit for through hikers to deposit their permits. The AT climbed steeply and steadily for nearly 2,000 vertical feet to a prominent topographic bench before climbing to Doe Knob (the first significant peak at EL=4,520-ft). I ascended the steep ridge into the park, I first passed by a German man whom I spoke with briefly. He asked me if I had a cell phone that he could use. I learned that he had left his only credit card at the NOC, which I had been unable to reach in the past couple of days. I told him that he was welcome to barrow my phone in the early morning before departure of Birch Springs Camp. Some distance further up the trail, I also passed a couple of young men setting camp in the middle of the trail at the Sassafras Gap trail junction. This was a fine example of lacking common sense, or just ignorance of the park rules. I refrained from saying anything and moved on into dusk, getting drenched by the rain. I made it to Birch Spring Gap. The camp sites (designated tent pads laid out on a schematic site map at the entrance) was a short distance down a steep trail from the ridge. I searched the area unaware of the hidden tent pads upslope. The site appeared at first to be full. I was about to set up on a wide flat spot with a wood hitching rail for horses. The hikers near by informed me of a nice vacant pad upslope of their tent. a steep muddy path, several hundred feet long wound around the hill to a leveled pad. It was, however, about as far as you could get from the spring below. For convenience, I prepared dinner at the fire pit, enjoying the fire that some other hikers had built earlier. Two of the hikers were brothers, who sat in front of the fire roasting marshmallows which they sandwiched with pieces of Hersey's chocolate (a sort of modified smore) I learned that they had reunited after a long spiritual detour that the eldest had taken. After perhaps a decade of indoctrination in Catholic priesthood, he decided to pursue the path of teaching in parochial schools instead. He arranged to hike in the Smokies with his younger brother in between interviews at various schools. I wished them a good journey before filling up water bottles at a spring a short distance form the fire pit, then hiked upslope in the damp, cold darkness to my tent near the top of the drainage. The rain continued through the night, though I slept soundly to the white noise of drops tapping on the walls of my tent.