Fontana Hilton

Greetings from the laundry room of the Fontana Lodge laundry room.

The past couple of days have brought us to the souther edge of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. We've lucked out on rain and made good time getting here.

Leaving the NoC we went straight up about 3,000 vertical feet over 6 miles to sassafras gap shelter. We met flash again, and a couple dudes hiking together  who call themselves Mary and Pippin. The weather was warm and sunny that day. Only bad thing asides the vertical gainz was at a lunch break my peanut butter fell down a cliff. Sam well documented the recovery effort.

The next day (Mar. 9) we did 15.2 to get to the cable gap shelter. Mary and Pippin were there again. We managed to time our hiking perfectly in that we left after the morning drizzle and got in before the evening rains. It's been nice that it only rains at night really, though that luck will surely runout in the smokeys.

From cable gap it was only 7 to the Fontana dam shelter where we'll stay tonight. We got the sketchiest hitch yet into the resort where we were looking to resupply, eat, and launder. The only real resteraunt in town is a hotel. Luckily the three of us were the only folks looking to eat on a Tuesday afternoon so they actually let three smelly hikers eat. They even gave us a free chicken pot pie to take back to the shelter which is like, probably the highlight of the week.

Anyways. I have a short time on WiFi while the wash works and then it's back to the shelter. No service there so I guess we'll chat next when we're through the smokeys. I'll try to get pics up before then.

Oh, and I got a charge cable at a gas station. All good.

Cheers