Day 12

I'm looking forward to going through normal towns. 

I woke up at 6:30 this morning and started writing my blog for yesterday. I was absolutely beat last night and the second I started writing, I started to nod off. After finishing the blog, I packed everything up and crawled out from my tent. After taking the tent down and grabbing breakfast, we were ready to get on trail around 815. 

Our day was split into two sections. Getting to Fontana, and then getting out of Fontana and up to birch springs campsite, right after shuckstack mountain.

The day didn't quite go as planned. For the first 8 miles of the day, everything went smoothly. We hiked up and down a couple small ridges this morning, until we hit cable gap shelter. From there, we walked 2 miles up some no named mountain, and then dropped 3 miles down in Fontana dam. 

This is where things got interesting. Last time we were here, we were able to coordinate a schedule with the resort. This time however, they had altered the pace of the shuttles to only run 3 times a day, 8am, 12pm, and 4pm. We got there at 12:30. 

So, without wasting to much time, we talked it over, and decided to road walk the two mile mountain road into Fontana dam. Was the 2 miles hard, no. Were they outside of the plan and inconvenient, yes. 

See, any thru hiker will tell you that things never, always go to plan. You learn to live with the flow of things and take things as they are. A good example would be the weather, or trail conditions. However, timing, or efficiency, are things that you grow used to and expect.

For most of the AT, the trail goes through towns with real grocery stores, within a reasonable walking distance. In sections like neels gap, the NOC, Fontana, and standing bear, you have 3 options: 

- go way off trail for a resupply.

- send food to a post office or hostel nearby.

- make due with a limited resupply option.

Now admittedly, Fontana is not way off trail, but it is a limited resupply. On that note, when we walked into town around 2, they had walker's and my resupply. Unfortunately, they didn't have Spencer's, or so we thought. Miraculously, at 2:45 or 3, I walk past one of the ladies working inside and she asks me if I was one of the guys hiking with Spencer Stevens. And what is she holding while asking me this? A fresh off the delivery truck resupply box for Spencer. 

From 3 to 4, we pretty much just relaxed outside the Fontana general store, snacking away and charging up our battery banks and phones for the smokies. 

At 4, we got on the shuttle, and got dropped off where we originally started our road walk into town. 

From that point, we went 8 miles and 3000 feet uphill, making it to camp around 720.

Currently, we're the only people at birch springs campsite in the western end of the smokies. We're planning on following our 2020 route which is: 

Day 1: Birch springs campsite (here now)

Day 2: Derrick knob shelter (17.5 miles ahead)

Day 3: Icewater gap shelter (21 miles from derrick)

Day 4: Cosby knob shelter (20 miles from Icewater)

Day 5: wake up, walk 8 miles out of the smokies and take a nero into Newport. 

Looking forward to seeing how the smokies compared to last time. We'll hit the 200 mile mark on Wednesday, and be done with the hardest challenge in the south by this weekend. Still can't believe I've only had frozen socks and shoes once. Or that nobody is at this campsite. If we go through the smokies without seeing a lot of other AT hikers I'll be bewildered. 

Thanks for following along. 

Tyler M.