Appalachian Trail SOBO Day 108 – The Fontana Hilton
11th November 2023
Russell Field Shelter (2017.6) - Fontana Hilton (2032.7)
Daily miles: 15.1
Total miles: 2020.8
I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of rain pouring down onto the shelter. That’s going to make getting up difficult. Another night to be glad for earplugs as someone was snoring in a way they sounded like they were choking.
The shelter started moving just before 6am when it still sounded like it was raining, but it always sounds worse in the shelter. Howard said to me “are you really hiking out in this weather?” I replied “I don’t think we have a choice”.
I was the first to leave, just having a cereal bar for breakfast. I started hiking at 6:30am, in the dark and drizzle. Thankfully the drizzle didn’t last too long and eventually it got light enough for me to see properly. I hiked as fast as I could knowing everyone was going to be catching me up. It was actually quite nice and peaceful this morning and I enjoyed my hike a lot.
Dark mornings
On the mountain tops
The shelters in the Smoky Mountains have tarps up for the winter
Trail of leaves
The uphills slowed me down a bit but I gained speed on the downhills. The weather seemed quite promising for good views on the upcoming fire tower, through the trees I could see clouds nestled in the valleys. But as I descended so did the mist and it was almost complete white out.
I had delayered early on when the weather improved and I was sweating under my waterproofs trying to keep up with Robin Hood who caught up to me. Eventually I had to stop to pee and put my jacket back on as the temperature had dropped a lot and Toe, Jet, Thigh High and Late Start all caught up to me. We were only 0.5 from the fire tower so I just about clung on to the back of the hiker train and we dropped our packs and took the short but steep side trail up to the tower.
The mist descended
Fire tower
We knew there were no views but we went up there anyway
Confirmed, no views
Looking down
May Queen and Hendrix were already up there and said there wasn’t any view but for some reason we all went up anyway and can confirm, there wasn’t a view.
Then it was mostly downhill from there and I hiked the last of the Smokies with Toe, Jet and Thigh High until we made it to the road where we caught up to Hendrix, May Queen and Late Start and we all walked across the dam together. The trees are really popping in this area with reds and yellows again, it looks like we have caught back up to fall.
Hiker train
There is a road under the leaves
Walking with Jet and Toe
Views across the lake
Look at those colours popping
Catching up with friends
We made it through the Great Smoky Mountains
The Smokys doing their smoky thing
Crossing the dam
Something was funny
The dam looking very golden
We arrived at the visitors centre at 12pm where Professor was waiting for us with his car, and Neptune and Robin Hood were there too. Professor had camped in the shelter about 3 miles behind ours and got up at 3:30am this morning and hiked out at 4am - through all that horrible weather - so he could be there for us! Lemonhope hiked out with him.
Professor was waiting for us, looking clean and dry!
So he took our packs in his car and we slack packed for half a mile to just before the shelter (the Fontana Hilton) where there was a girl called Bubbles waiting with trail magic.
Chocolate milk, doughnuts, fruit. So much good stuff. I had 2 big cups of chocolate milk and 2 Krispy Kreme donuts, but I wanted some real food. Everyone else arrived and when we were all there it was quite a lot to deal with. A lot of ideas and opinions. I was tired and hungry and wasn’t dealing with it very well.
Trail magic!
Thanks for the photo Bubbles!
Bubbles had done an amazing thing and she had gone to the supermarket and purchased loads of stuff for resupply and she was taking venmo payments for it. International people don’t have venmo and it made it tricky so the easiest thing to do would be to go to town. Professor was offering a ride to town and back which was a 45 minute journey each way. Some people didn’t want to go. More people did. Anyway, after much discussion 4 of us went to town - me, May Queen, Lemonhope and Robin Hood - and we had orders of stuff to collect for other people.
First stop was Burger King. I don’t like Burger King that much but they sell Impossible burgers and as May Queen is vegan we went there. I got a double cheeseburger, which was tiny, and 8 nuggets and fries. I inhaled it.
Didn’t touch the sides
Next stop was the supermarket where we got some resupply, we only needed a couple of days of food so I got the usual junk.
We then went back to the fast food places to pick up people’s orders. Burger King would only sell 8 nuggets so we went to McDonald’s to order chicken nuggets. People were getting 40 nuggs and I jumped on the bandwagon and got myself 40 nuggs, so we put in an order for 200 chicken nuggets, the craziest order I’ve ever put in for fast food. I figured I could eat some tonight and then eat the rest tomorrow. They will probably be gross tomorrow! We also picked up food from Bojangles.
200 nuggets
This is what 200 nuggets looks like
Professor’s car smelt pretty terrible with us stinky hikers and about 300 dollars of fried chicken.
A trunk full of fried food
We got back to the parking lot and everyone was still sat there drinking beer. Bubbles had gone. We handed out all the food and said goodbye to Professor.
Saying bye to Professor
A bunch of happy hikers
Some people had been having showers while we were in town and that sounded nice but we don’t have towels. Bubbles gave us a towel but I’m not keen on towel sharing and I would be down the line of a long list of users so I went without.
We called down to the shelter (nicknamed the Fontana Hilton because it’s large with flushing toilets and hot showers) just before it started to get dark and we are the only ones in there tonight. It’s a big shelter and this is the first time that all 14 of us are in the same shelter.
I finally got to take my shoes off which had got soaked this morning but I had almost worn them dry through the afternoon but my feet were sore and still a bit damp.
Some people were outside playing Monopoly Deal and the rest of us were in the shelter. I was organising my resupply and then I started on my nuggets. Crunchy arrived - he is desperately trying to keep up with us, and he made it! But he missed out on the trail magic and town stop so I gave him some of my nuggets.
The rest of the evening was spent chatting and trying to convince the first time trailers that the other trails are better than this one.
