Category: Appalachian Trail 2021

Start: Fontana Dam Road (AT mi 164.3). Stop: Stecoah Gap (AT mi 150.6). Today’s miles: 13.7 miles. Total AT mileage: 2042.5 miles.

I slept in some today. And honestly, I had no qualms with it. My bed was comfortable, I was warm, and I slept well. Eventually I’ll be back on an actual schedule and the idea of that stinks.. and I’ve realized I’ve never really let go of the “schedule” while out here. I’ve always had somewhere to be by this date, miles to hike by this time.. and while it sounds stressful, it’s actually somewhat comforting to have control over it.. and know that if I don’t technically keep control over it, nothing bad will happen.. weird, right?

So, I got up around 8.. the shuttle driver couldn’t drive me back to the trail until 9 anyway, so why rush? I was going to pack, and did pack a few things, but then decided to walk upstairs in my warm sleep clothes for breakfast instead. It was a buffet, and I ended up sitting there until 9:30.. haha. I ate four biscuits and gravy, along with eggs, bacon, sausage links (I don’t even like those, not sure why I got them or ate them), and hashbrowns. I also had several cups of coffee and orange juice. The sweet waitress sat me at a window table so I had a beautiful view of the lodge with the mountains behind it.. and I could feel the cold coming off the window panes. Yep. I took my sweet time eating, prolonging the inevitable return to the cold. I tried to use the WiFi to upload some pictures, which worked, and I saw that my Braves won the first game of the World Series last night! Wahoo! My watching some didn’t jinx them!

It was in the high 30s outside, but warming semi quickly, and it was sunny. It would eventually get into the 60s and be gorgeous, but knowing it was that cold right now, I just couldn’t be motivated to get a move on. After eating, I went back to my room and took forever to pack.. I sat and blankly stared awhile before finally pushing myself to get it done and check out of my room. I returned my room keys and asked for the shuttle around 10.

The driver was there in minutes and had me back at the trailhead by the marina. I had a 3+ mile climb right out of the Fontana Dam Marina. I’ve learned I like to call it quits for the day right before another huge climb.. yesterday was clearly no different. Ha. I didn’t get started until 10:15, and minutes after I started huffing and puffing in all my rain gear (put on for warmth, not rain today) I ran into Ox doing trail maintenance!

We laughed about my late departure this morning and talked a minute before I trudged upwards. He was making the steep lunge like steps smaller, easier, to get up. Sadly for me, he had only recently started so only the bottom several steps were done. He still had a whole lot to do-and I had to lunge my way up the rest.. I’m amazed at the work trail maintainers put in, volunteering most of the time no less. He was doing some very labor intensive work.. I was and still am very impressed and grateful.

After the big lunge steps came smaller stone steps.. all of which were still steeply climbing to Walker Gap. Which was strange, because gaps are usually low spots, not at almost tops of mountains. A mile or so from the top I got a good chuckle at myself when I realized that this is the climb I had thought I would do yesterday afternoon, before I snapped and decided I needed a hot shower to warm up my cold toes. How silly was I to think I would have climbed this 3 plus miles, soaked to the bone and cold as ever, and then slept in the shelter I was now passing. I’m forever thankful my toes protested that plan by 11am yesterday.

The rest of the day was rolling, ups and downs, deep in the woods without many views. At some point I had a hunting dog run up on me and follow along with me a mile or so, continuously whining but wouldn’t let me pet her.. she’d flatten to the ground and then cry so I quit trying to love on her. She’d follow at my heels, several times stepping on my feet, making me worry I’d somehow trip over her and accidentally hurt her. Strangely enough, as quick as she appeared, she vanished off the side of the mountain in full chase of something she saw that I didn’t.. and she didn’t return to me.

I had big intentions of hiking to a campsite, a climb out of a road crossing that was steep but not horrible. The campsite was on the way up to Cheoah Bald. Before I settled on the campsite, I had thought I might push forward and camp on the bald or even go a little farther to the shelter past that.. but that all quickly went out of the window when I took so long to leave the lodge this morning. Just after 2pm, I was stepping over a huge downed tree in the middle of the trail and some how double bounced my right knee on the log and skinned it. Blood started to trickle and the bottom scrape started to swell. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spew a buttload of explicatives. It hurt!

I took my time attempting to walk it off, letting my brain realize I’d be fine after all. But, I was walking slower now and decided maybe I should try to stealth camp near the road crossing instead of attempting to push across and up to the campsite. I even went so far as to filter extra water when I crossed a stream so I’d have plenty to stealth camp. I was thinking I’d get up at 6am and leave packed and ready by 7, when the rain was supposed to hit.. not ideal, since I hate waking up, but a decent plan to not have to pack a wet tent.

And then, as it started to inch towards 5pm, I decided I was silly. I called Lonnie at Wolf Creek Hostel and asked him if he had a bed for me tonight. He said he did, I told him I’d be at the road crossing in 20 minutes, he said he’d be there. I dumped my extra water while passing a pristine stealth site, laughing to myself. Not even 14 miles today, but I got a great breakfast and a warm bed for the night. No regrets.

Lonnie met me at Stecoah Gap and drove me to the hostel. Roundhouse was there! I asked about Finch, but Roundhouse seemed to think he was behind him. I was shocked at our meeting up, honestly. And come to find out, we had both been dropped off at Clingmans Dome the same day, he had gotten off trail with his girlfriend for a few days.. ahhh. Now it clicks.

Shadow is the caretaker here, so he gave me a quick tour after Lonnie left to head back to work. I walked next door to the gas station and got a pizza and a Gatorade, then sat it on the kitchen table before hopping in the shower and getting clean. My knee burned in the water. Once out and in loaner clothes, I gave my clothes to Shadow who started the wash. I bandaged my knee so it wouldn’t get stuck to the loaner pants I was wearing, and then took my food to the fire pit out back and ate dinner while chatting with Shadow and Roundhouse all while sitting around a perfect campfire.

I hung out awhile, then when I was too cold to stand it, and the fire wasn’t keeping me warm enough, I headed back inside. I turned on the tv to find the World Series.. the Braves and Astros were literally tied 1-1 and I turned it on right as the Astros knocked in 3 runs and had the bases loaded. I immediately yelled and turned off the tv-mad I jinxed my Braves like that. I sadly walked to my room, which was a private room with a double sized bed! Not sure how I lucked out there, but I was happy about it, quickly forgetting my sadness over the game.

I laid down to type this up, snuggled in the quilt I found on the dresser. I’m pretty tired, and honestly frustrated with the lack of service and decent WiFi.. I’m still not able to get any of my posts up. It was a thing of being too cold to type the journals out, now that I have, I don’t have the service to post them. Oh well, if things continue in this fashion, I’ll hopefully be able to do a mass upload when mom comes this weekend and I take a zero in Franklin. We shall see! Sorry about the inconsistency with posts, but such is life on the trail. If you have great service, your fingers are frozen and it’s raining and you just can’t type it out, or you’re so tired you fall asleep before you can.. when you’re wide awake and ready to knock it all out and get things up to date-service is non existent. Haha! Love y’all. Sweet dreams.

Start: Spence Field Shelter (AT mi 183.7). Stop: Fontana Dam Road (AT mi 164.3). Today’s miles: 19.4 miles. Total AT mileage: 2028.8 miles. States Completed: Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee

I eventually got warm in my sleeping bag, but any time I moved the cold sliced through me, starting all the shivering all over again. I had to get up to pee around midnight, in the pouring rain, causing a whole body shake for about 45 minutes after getting back into my sleeping bag. Apparently I didn’t put my toilet paper roll back into its zip lock bag, because I woke up surrounded by toilet paper confetti between my sleep stuff and the shelter wall. Mice found my TP and decided to use it for their nesting, shredding it all over the place. Whoops!

I got up just after 7am to it still raining and the wind creating a cacophony of noise. The wind was beating the trees and smacking nuts and limbs into the shelter roof. I packed, put my rain gear back on, and then got my food bag down to make breakfast. I ate with the REI ladies, and then headed out into the rain minutes later. They hooted and cheered for me, thinking I was nuts for hiking out into the rain and cold so early in the morning. They would eventually do the same, but they weren’t hiking many miles.

It was so cold, my fingers were numb, and my toes tingled in my socks and shoes, completely drenched through within minutes of walking out of camp. Before too long, they too were numb. It was so wet and sloshy on the trail, I could see each breath in front of me. I was supposed to be hiking to the Fontana Dam shelter, called the Fontana Hilton, but I was so miserable with the weather that I decided I’d try to get a room for the night so I could warm up and sleep in a dry space.

Once the rain slowed and I had service on my phone, I started making phone calls- the first 2 hostels I called were booked solid with people up visiting the mountains for the fall colors. I was calling the 3rd hostel when the call dropped. I couldn’t get my phone to make the calls again.. so, I text mom that guys number and told her the situation. The text made it through to her, thankfully, but then I lost service again. At some point I got service back and mom text me to tell me she got me a room at the Fontana Dam Resort Lodge because it was cheaper than the hostel would be after the charge for shuttling to get me and drop me back off tomorrow.

Happy, knowing I’d have somewhere warm to sleep tonight, I stopped at Mollies Ridge shelter and ate a peanut butter tortilla as quick as I could, too cold to sit still a second longer. And then kept on going. The trail was wet, sloshy, and slick, but again I had no falls. The views were non existent in the woods and with the ledges surrounded by rain clouds. Some time during a climb up to Doe Knob, I crossed out of Tennessee for the last time, although there was no sign saying that. I’ve officially completed 12 of the 14 states that the AT goes through!

After 1pm the rain stopped and the sun decided to come out. While the temperature didn’t improve, thanks to the wind, the rain stopping made it all so much better. I even started to feel my toes again. Sometime during this moment of enjoying the sunshine, I thought maybe I overreacted about needing a warm bed tonight.. and then decided that I do want that bed so, overreaction or not, it worked out how it should have.

The trail went down steep switchbacks to the valley that held the Fontana Dam Lake. It was beautiful, and the trail went along the road around the dam for awhile before snaking back into the woods along the water’s edge. I talked with some tourists driving through, they shared some water with me and I happily accepted it, not wanting to have to filter any. I got to the road crossing that held the marina just after 4pm. I walked down to the store at the marina, originally wanting to find something to snack on, but I was underwhelmed with the options, so I just got a shuttle instead.

The driver picked me up to take me into Fontana Village. This area used to be where the workers for the dam lived, now it’s a resort with a lodge, gas station, restaurant, laundry mat, post office, and general store. The lodge has hotel rooms and cabins, too. Plus a pool.. but it was too cold for pool fun. I had the driver stop at the gas station so I could resupply (and get snacks), then I was dropped off at the lodge to check in.

I got my room key and set off to find it and get into the shower immediately. My feet felt the way they do when you’ve stayed in the bath too long-and then ran a half marathon on them. They were tender and way too cold and soggy. I actually turned the heat on in the room before I got in the shower-with the water as hot as it would get. When I finally felt back to normal, I got out and got dressed. Then washed my socks and undies in the sink-there was a laundry mat but I was not about to walk to it.

I walked down to the restaurant around 6:30. When I was being seated, a man that I had briefly met on the trail doing maintenance work with some other people invited me to sit with him. His trail name is Ox, and he did the trail in 1997 and again in sections over the years since. He was so fun to talk with.. we laughed and shared stories for what felt like a minute but ended up being almost 2 hours. While we were eating, another hiker came up to us and remembered ox from years ago, doing trail maintenance during a sleet storm. We all 3 got a good laugh at them reminiscing.

I tried to pay my bill when the checks came, but Ox refused to let me. He payed for my dinner and beer. If I had known he was going to do that, I wouldn’t have ordered so much food! I was so grateful to him for his kindness, the company alone would have been more than enough. I took my left overs with me after we said our byes and made the cold walk back up to the lodge.

Back in my room, I smiled at how this day turned out. I started off cold and miserable, I’m ending with a full belly, great conversation, and a warm bed.. then I remembered the World Series! I quickly turned on the TV and started watching my Braves beat the Astros. I was planning to multitask, download the app my friend Tijuan’s movie is coming out on, upload pictures for the blog, post yesterday’s blog.. BUT, I didn’t have any service and apparently the WiFi only worked in the lobby. And I was not about to get out of that bed!

So, I’m laying here, eating the leftovers I thought I was too full to eat, typing this out, yelling at the TV like I’m at the game.. I doubt I’ll make it through the whole thing, I’m already tired and it’s inching close to 10pm.. way past my bedtime..
And so, this is time to say goodnight 🙂 sweet dreams!

Start: Clingman’s Dome (AT mi 200). Stop: Spence Field Shelter (AT mi 183.7). Today’s miles: 16.3 miles. Total AT mileage: 2009.4 miles.

I overslept this morning at Bill’s place.. but luckily only like 20 or so minutes and not the hours I used to oversleep. I jumped up, rushed to pack, and then met Bill in the kitchen to help bring the breakfast he had been making out to the screened in porch with gorgeous morning mountain views.

He made scrambled eggs with artichoke hearts, bacon, potatoes and coffee. It was delicious! I was surprised I could eat anything after all the food I crammed in my mouth at the BBQ place last night, but my stomach was growling at the smells in the kitchen before I even finished packing.

Bill drove me back to Clingman’s Dome so I could start southbound from the top. It was a beautiful, chilly morning, with clear skies so far. And-being 9:30am, there was way less people! I headed up the paved road to the observation deck, Bill took a side trail to his favorite spot. We’d end up meeting there later when I started going south.
The paved walk up to Clingman’s is a steep half mile, every tenth of a mile or so there’s a bench for people to sit and rest a bit before carrying on.

I was speed walking up that thing, weaving around the others.. and giggling when they’d say things to their spouses like, “how the hell is she walking up this so fast with that big ole pack on her back? I need to sit down, just watching her makes me tired!” Haha-if you ever need some validation that your hard physical work is paying off-go truck up to Clingman’s Dome!

Once I got some lovely pictures from the top (with only 4-5 people, compared to the droves of hundreds packed in shoulder to shoulder yesterday), I headed into the woods on the AT. I liked this part of the trail. It was moss covered and it felt like a hidden gem again, like the masses were clueless that this beautiful trail was snuck in just beside their paved walkway. About 10-15 minutes later, I met up with Bill and he showed me his favorite spot. A tiny ledge behind some trees had a view of mountains and sky for miles and miles. I was awestruck as he pointed out the names of the mountains, the ridge lines, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.

We took some pictures and when I felt the wind picking up, I said my goodbyes. Rain was in the forecast, and the way the sky was changing, I knew it would be here soon.. and I still had a long way to go. We hugged, and I was off. Within thirty minutes the sky was dark and I decided to go ahead and put on my rain pants.. I already had the jacket on. I passed view after view of vast vistas of mountains in their autumn best. With the dark clouds over top, it made the leaves pop that much more.. these views are what you expect to see in a calendar for October, peak fall color. As pretty as it was, I kept a quick pace, always waiting on that rain to come and slow me down.

Sometime before the rain I came across my 2000 mile marker.. someone made it out of sticks on the ground. Y’all. I cried. I can officially call myself a thru hiker now, not someone attempting a thru hike.. once you complete 2000 miles of a long trail, you’re considered a thru hiker.. and as silly as words and self proclaimed titles are-this one has been a dream of mine for years now, and I’ve made it happen! I’ve hiked through rain, Lyme’s Disease, rolled ankles and busted knees, treacherous mountains in the dark, and cowboy camped under a sky of stars.. I’m a thruhiker. And now I’m tearing up again, dammit.

Around 2pm the inevitable happened. The sky dropped. My rain gear was holding its own, but I was now freezing cold. It was probably in the mid 40s-not that I would pull my phone out to try to find out in that kind of downpour. Strangely, even with the lakes of wet leaves and slick muddy trail, I didn’t fall any. Part of me thought I should just flop down now, so karma would see I already fell once, no need to make me do it again later.. but I stood on my two feet the whole time. Shocking really.

I paused at a shelter, a quick reprieve to check my phone and see how much farther my destination was. I also needed water.. funny, needing water when I was getting pounded by it. The people at the shelter attempted to talk me into staying there, instead of moving on.. I declined their kind offer, but did accept a liter of the water one guy had already collected, so I wouldn’t have to walk half a mile downhill to get my own.

I trudged on, I had 6 more miles to get to the shelter I was aiming for. It was getting so cold, and the higher I climbed along these ridges only made that worse. The rain was a steady drenching until just after 4pm, and then, as quickly as it came, it stopped. But, since the leaves were all soaked, when the wind whipped through, the leaves showered me instead of the sky. And the wind did not seem to stop howling. My fingers and toes were numb.

I ended up taking my rain pants off as I hiked up Thunderhead Mountain. The climb wasn’t tough, but it was demanding, got my heart pumping and warmed me up. I was actually grateful for it, especially when I started to feel my fingers again. The views at the top weren’t phenomenal, but when I went down and back up to the top of Rocky Top-they were breathtaking. The sun was shining through the rain clouds off in the distance and it had a magical feel to it. It’s moments like these that have me feeling immense gratitude for the situation I’ve found myself in. Such a beautiful life and a profound feeling of being so small in a world so enormous.

I got to the shelter just after 6pm. There were 8 women on a guided backpacking trip from REI (2 of the 8 were guides, both of which did the AT!). There was also a guy on a section hike there. The women were so happy for me and my 2k mile crossing, they congratulated me and asked questions. Savage, one of the guides, completed the AT in 2019, and knows Lady Di! Such a small community of folks! We chatted a bit while I unpacked my stuff and set up on the bottom floor of the double decker shelter. The guides were sleeping on the top deck, the ladies were all camping. I knew more rain was coming overnight and tomorrow, so I didn’t set up my tent.

I ate dinner shivering, it was already down to the high 30s and the wind was harsh. I ended up wrapping my water filter and putting it with me in my sleeping bag when I finally snuggled into it. If it dropped to below freezing, the filter could break and be useless. I’ve made it this far without catching giardia, I don’t want to take any chances of ruining that streak.

It took a long time to get warm enough to stop shivering in my sleeping bag. I had it tented over my body and head, worrying that my hot breath might make me pass out if I stayed under there too long, and then thought maybe that would be ok.. haha. When my hands could be semi steady, I only typed out short, choppy reminders of the day, in list form. It’s technically 5 days later that I’m writing all the details out.. it’s been a mixture of making sure I write out that day’s journal and then being too tired or cold to come back and write up today’s journal. Sorry about that. Lately, with rushing to make it to camp before the sun sets, and then having the cold set in, it’s been difficult to get this done. But, I’m almost done with the trail, so, I’ll make it happen either way!

Thanks for following along! So very sorry for the delay. (Just know, as I’m typing this up, I’m toasty warm in a hotel room with my mom!)