Date: 2003-03-16
From: brown fork gap shelter

To: fontana hilton shelter
Miles today: 11.7
Weather: mist

day 15rained last night and woke up to a drizzly morning. got myself situated, waited for dean a bit and headed out. shortly after we got on the trail we saw brendan running back down towards the shelter. he had forgotten his packcover. not to long after he caught up to us and told us how he had stashed his pack off the trail to not have to walk back to the shelter with it, but then couldn't find it on his way back. we had wondered why we'd never seen his pack as we passed through. funny morning.i got a little ahead of the fellas and caught up to dimps and a-train. soon we ran into some majic at a dirt road that was left by an angel that i never met. his name is "ox" and apparently he does a lot of majic in the georgia-nc area. dean had met him just a day or two ago. there was a couple of sodas and some fruit left. i took an orange and a soda. i decided to sit by the road and wait for the fellas to share some of the majic. dean rolled up pretty soon and brendan shortly after.the rest of the day was uneventful and then dean and i got to the road with the parking lot, restrooms, soda machine, and bulletin board with the shuttle phone to go into fontana village. i wasn't going in, but dean was and apparently he had just missed the shuttle so had to wait something like an hour for the next, so he decided to walk up to the fontana dam visitor center a couple of miles north of there. we walked and pretty soon we were at the luxurious "fontana hilton" shelter that i had been hearing so much about as of late.it really is a nice shelter. well built, clean, with plenty of room. but the killer is the view. absolutely gorgeous. you have the lake right in front of you and a view of the first ridge of the smokies that you walk on the other side of the lake. quality!dean hung around for a bit and then took off to the visitors center to make his call. at the shelter were two guys that i'd faintly seen at franklin, nc and that i wouldn't see again after the next morning. i've long forgotten their names, but they were really nice. it had just been one of their birthdays and that one's food bag was just exploding with junkfood. the guy had a couple of bags of popcorn, all kinds of candy and chocalate bars, and he just kept offering me so much. so i ate really well and in return i cooked his buddy and myself some pasta. we all ate well.later i went to take one of the most painful showers that i've ever taken at the visitors center. the water just shoots out of this pin-hole nozzle and it really does hurt the skin a bit. but hey, you're getting clean and it's hot water, so i managed. i got back to the shelter and shot it for a bit and the guys told me how they were basically pushing because they had to get back to school. one of them was studying enviromental sciences and was hoping to work for the national park service in the smokies in the future. so he was really excited to be starting them tommorrow. he talked about them a bit and i thought how it was kind of cool how he was about to see what his ambitions were aimed at.caught a gorgeous sunset and called it a night.