Date: 2019-04-05
From: Fontana Dam Visitor's Center

To: Russell Field shelter
Miles today: 14.5
Weather: clear sky

It's getting really hard to sleep in. Even though we were up late watching movies in Fontana Lodge I'm awake and alert well before dawn and can't stay in bed. It rained all night and will continue to drizzle throughout the morning.The other guys decide to take the shuttle and hike out early, mostly to nab shelter spots I think. I plan to hang around the lodge until noon so I can use their WiFi for a special task. After I finish the trail in Damascus I'll be taking my three boys to Arizona and Utah for some camping and backpacking in the national parks. Today I need to reserve a backcountry permit for Zion, over two months ahead of time. The window opens exactly at noon and the spots will go quickly.I fiddle most of the morning with a way to call home and talk to my family before I enter the Smokies. It's been four or five days since I spoke to them and God knows when I will be able to again. But I have no cell signal in Fontana and my phone doesn't support Wifi calling. Finally I get a VoIP app to work and get to speak with Sara and the kids for fifteen minutes. My son just made Life Scout and I'm very proud. And my daughter is preparing to start on her Girl Scout Gold Award, their highest achievement. I can't wait to be with them all again.Precisely at noon I log in and manage to get a Zion reservation. Within a few minutes virtually everything is booked. Wow! Popular park.I make a plan to pick up my hiking pace to get to Damascus in two weeks so I can get home for Easter. I could continue to take it relatively easy and hang with the friends I've made, but I would have to schedule another section hike to finish the trail. To finish by April 19th requires just over 20 miles a day. Most people would think that crazy, but I averaged 23-24 miles over most of the trail between Damascus and New Hampshire. It's a difficult decision for me. Smiles before miles, but every day away from my family is hard.Finally I catch the shuttle back to the dam visitor's center. The driver tells me they've drained the lake to perform maintenance on the dam. That's why the shoreline looks so barren.I hike over Fontana Dam, built during the war and the tallest dam in the east. A section hiker from Atlanta named John joins me. He's hiking the Smokies, adding to previous hikes that have gotten him up to Fontana.We encounter a young woman leaving the park and I'm about to congratulate her for finishing what I assume is a southbound crossing, but she is actually a northbounder bailing out and going back to town. It rained last night and she believes it will continue to rain and is not comfortable continuing with her wet tent. The weather is actually supposed to be nice today and tomorrow, but she has already made up her mind.The next two miles go up almost two thousand feet so it's steep and tiring. I hear more birds singing and it is much more humid than at any time this trip. I am quickly sweating. The Smokies feels like the rainforest that it is. On the way up I see three young guys that look like they should run circles around me. They are finishing up a break and jump to hike ahead of me, no doubt assuming they'd have to pass me anyway. I don't insult their manhood by trying to pass and just hang back twenty yards. But after a half mile they tire and stop to take off their packs. I hike past and wave.Below the sidetrail to the Shuckstack firetower, Lady Poles and Wubby are lounging and smoking. They're part of a group of 8 or 10 who call themselves the Misfits. That group seems to constitute the core of The Bubble of hikers who started around March 20, and whom I would like to get ahead of.Two dayhikers heading up to the firetower call me Fresh Legs as I pass. They look not much older than me, and have no backpacks, but the five mile hike from Fontana has clearly taxed them.A portly hiker named Caveman is up in the Shuckstack tower. There are great views over Fontana Lake, the mountains to the south and east, and foothills in Tennessee to the west. But the Smokies are, appropriately, in the clouds.Once up on the ridge the trail rolls over a number of hills with small but occasionally steep climbs. I see Sawdust, a retiree from Aiken, SC again. I had met him yesterday at the laundromat. When he learns my name he remembers why I look familiar. He read my trail journal a couple years ago. The one I'm still adding to!I pass by a girl named Little Blade resting by the trailside. She's from Berwyn, PA and we met a couple days ago when she was excited to meet me based on my name being a nearby town. Nice kid.I also pass a grumpy young stocky blonde guy who proceeds to tell me how he hates the Smokies, the climb, the permits, the camping rules, and paying to hike here. I tell him my story of spending the morning to land a permit for Zion. The Smokies permit, in contrast, is guaranteed and easy. He thinks the rangers are here to harass him if it takes him more than 8 days to exit the park. I've met very few rangers who weren't as helpful and friendly as possible, especially to hikers. I'm sure the Smokies is no different.I mentioned Stripes before, from Quebec. He's the last person I pass before I reach the first shelter, Mollie's Ridge. He has a great attitude and I like him.The shelter is full, with many people tenting. Stick Figure and Gandalf are here along with some of the Misfits and others I remember from The Bubble. There are several Brits among them. One of the hikers tells me Clammy, UNICEF, and Fast Lane moved on after eating lunch here.I take advantage of cell signal to check messages while hiking over the Devil's Tater Patch (what a great name). I hear a loud rustle to the right and what is probably a deer running off, though in my mind it's a bear. But no sooner do my eyes return to the trail than I hear a loud grunt from my left. I whirl my head and a dark beast is staring at me from maybe fifty feet away. The ears are too large for a bear, and I've never known one to grunt. But I'm concerned that I've walked between a mama and her cub! Thankfully the beast crashes away into the brush. I'm pretty certain it was a wild boar, also not a critter to mess with. I'm on edge for the next mile. I see one or two cloven hoof marks in the mud, confirming my suspicion.At Russell Field shelter I'm reunited with the gang. The only other people here are Scrub-a-dub and Liv, who own Riggles, the shy and prickly dog I met in town. Riggles is in a kennel since dogs are prohibited in the Smokies. Everyone else stopped at the first shelter. They are only three miles apart.Clammy builds a fire in the shelter's fireplace using what little dry material we can find, while I heat up Pad Thai for dinner. The fire is warm and cheery and we all huddle around it chatting and laughing. Liv will henceforth be known as Scarecrow because she took the brain off her backpack (the brain is a detachable compartment that sits on top). "Jamie Lee Curtis Yogurt" is a close second and the inside joke of the night.Coyotes howl us to sleep, after a passenger jet growls overhead.