Inn out of the Cold

So it’s Friday, April 5, at about 7:30 at night. I’m currently staying at the Hike Inn, which is a wonderful little motel run by a delightful lady named Nancy, who takes in hikers and treats them very well. But I'll get to that later.

So the Hike Inn is closest to Fontana Dam, which is at mile marker 166.5. I hiked about 7.1 miles today. I woke up this morning at Cable Gap shelter, which kept making me think about Jim Carrey in the movie Cable Guy. When I woke up, it was freezing again! Very cold. It rained overnight, rather than snowing, so maybe it didn't dip too far below freezing at any point. But it was cold nonetheless, and I wanted to get hustling.

Not long after I started hiking up out of the gap, I was going along a trail that was dusted with a little bit of snow. So clearly, the higher elevations got some snow, and I could see snow on the distant peaks. Overall, it wasn’t a terribly challenging hike — up a little bit and then a big down into Fontana Dam. Close to the bottom, there's a little wooden bridge, and on one end of it, there's a sign that identifies it as the Billy Goat Gruff Memorial Bridge. Thankfully, I made the cutoff for the two-legged weight limit. [Wife note: As cute as this idea is, the editor in me is having ALL kinds of issues with this sign.] It's kind of an interesting bridge, but when I looked up online, I couldn't find any particular story behind it.

About a third of a mile before you get to the Fontana Dam Visitor Center, you come to this legendary shelter called the Fontana Hilton. It’s just a lovely structure, overlooking a lake. And interestingly, I bumped into a woman there named Mercedes. I'm actually not sure if that's her trail name or her given name, but we sat next to each other during our orientation way back at Amicolola Falls. I probably haven't seen her for 100 miles. Yet here we are at the same point. It's strange when you bump into people here and there along the way. It was fun to catch up a little bit, but now, she's heading home for a few days.

That’s Mercedes on the left.

At 2 o'clock, Nancy from the Hike Inn arrived to pick me up. She’d already picked up two other hikers who had exited the AT a different point a couple miles further south. I’d decided to log the extra miles. Nancy is just a delightful woman, super mellow.

We pull into the Hike Inn, which is this cute little motel with, I think, just six rooms. She tells me that I'm in room five, and as soon as I open the door, I see the resupply box that S. had sent. Nancy had left it for me on the bed, which was very sweet. She then points to a laundry basket and tells me to put my clothes in it and that she’ll do my wash for me.

So that I’d have something to wear in the meantime, she loaned me some scrubs. They're very comfortable. I really need to get myself some scrubs when I get home. After that, I took a shower, and Nancy let me hang up my tent in the side yard to dry, which was great.

Next, I got down to business. I planned out all my upcoming stops in the Smokies. I repackaged all my food, and I refolded all my clothes. Nancy had kindly brought me my clean clothes already folded, but I had to refold some of them to fit into my bag properly. Things like that.

 Earlier in the day, I’d texted S. to see if she could help me with my Smokies permit. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park requires every AT thru-hiker to obtain a special permit, and you’re given eight days to get through the park. You have to have a hard copy of the permit, and you leave half of it in a special box when you enter the park, and the other half when you exit. I was starting to get nervous that I was going to get mine too late. Everyone had been telling me that Fontana was the last place you could print your permit, and I was worried that I should have applied earlier.

S. was able to fill out the form and pay for the permit for me, and then forward it to me via email. I passed that along to Nancy, and while I was doing my various little hiker chores, she stopped by and dropped it off. Super helpful. At that point, I only had one more thing I had to deal with while I had decent internet.

I got on the REI website and ordered myself a new backpack. I actually like a lot of things about my pack, but as I mentioned a couple days ago, the frame is too small for me. So I got the same model, just in a smaller size. And the coolest part was that I was able to buy it using the very generous gift certificate my work colleagues gave me as a goodbye gift.

So thank you, guys! You definitely bailed me out there. I’m having the backpack sent to a friend of mine's house. We're planning to meet up in Hot Springs, which is about 100 miles from here, and do a bit of the trail together, so he'll just bring it with him.

Nancy offered to drive me into town — I'm actually not sure what town is near here — to get some food, but I already have too much. On top of everything in S.'s resupply box, I still have a decent amount left over that I didn't eat from the last time I went shopping. So, for dinner, I had a corn and smoked fish chowder, which was a delight, and I'll have a video call with S. later on tonight. All in all, a fantastic stop, and it’s on to the Smokies tomorrow!