Day 78 - Friday, May 28, 2021
Happy Memorial Day Weekend 🇺🇸 .
Thank you to all the brave Americans who paid the ultimate price fighting for our country and giving us the freedom that we have today... they will not be forgotten!
We made our way down to Robbinsville, NC to resume hiking after we decided to temporarily skip the Smoky’s. We rented an Airbnb which was a storage unit made into efficiency apartments. It is actually very nice, fairly new and was surprisingly very well furnished (it even matched the pictures on the website). This area is a big motorcycle haven as we are not to far from the “Dragon’s Tail” so all the units come with an adjacent motorcycle garage which holds 2-3 bikes.
Turtle Power cooked a delicious 🙄 spaghetti and meatball dinner then we sat around the fire pit listening to songs from the 70’s & 80’s... OMG we just turned into our parents except we weren’t telling DPJ’s*; well maybe a couple 🤭 (*DPJ’s : dirty parent jokes).
Relaxing around the fire pit 🎼.
We Woke up to partly cloudy skies and the temperature was already 65°.
We skipped the Smoky’s due to issues with our condo closing and are continuing SoBo where I can be flexible to go to the closing in Florida when it gets scheduled. We’ll catch them when we flip NoBo after finishing SobBo at Springer Mountain.
We began hiking at 9:15 am. We weren’t 1/4 mile into the hike when it started to downpour. We headed to a pavilion at the Visitor Center to wait out the storm (about 30 minutes).
Rain and mist passing over Fontana Dam.
The trail was very poorly marked in this area and we inadvertently hiked off the trail* where we finally got back on the trail by the Fontana Marina on NC 28. We marked where the trail goes North in which we will pick up back to the dam after we get done hiking to Stecoach Gap. We were assisted finding the trail by a “noob” named “Flint”. He tried to bribe hiking with us by offering us food... he got Turtle’s attention. We were taking off our ponchos as the rain stopped but “Flint” took off like a shot. We just looked at each other and grinned. We passed “Flint” less than a 1/4 mile up the trail where he was already taking a break. I told him ... “take it easy there “Flint”, slow and steady wins the race”. We never saw him again 🙄.
As I mentioned before, this section of the trail is one of the most poorly blazed and maintained sections that we have hiked. The undergrowth is in desperate need of trimming as we got even more soaked from “bushwhacking” down the trail, through all the wet over grown bushes and rhododendrons adjacent to the trail. Between “bushwhacking” down the trail and looking for the next blaze, as there was several intersecting trails, I looked up as I was rock hopping and at exactly 11:55 am...
You got it. My feet slipped out from under me as I nailed a perfect 10, “face plant” on my derier . I instinctively hit the rock landing on my left hip and extending my arms out displacing my weight executing a pretty good “meet Mr. Floor”. I laid there a couple seconds, as the moment was captured for eternity by Turtle Power, accessing what the hec just happened and determined I was okay.
I continue down the wet and slippery trail and less than 3 minutes later, my trekking poles slip and crossed in front me and I had to let go of them to catch myself, going to a 4 point touch.... 🔔 🔔 🔔 ! Turtle Power picked up two dinners in less than 5 minutes to go to the plus 1 on the meal total.
Chuggin along.
Looking back up “Jacob’s Ladder*”. We’ve traversed more difficult sections than this but is sure does get your attention (* Jacob’s Ladder: A 647-foot climb in 0.5 miles. It’s almost straight up with only a couple of switchbacks at the top).
Looking down on NC 143 on our final descent.
We finished hiking at 5:15 pm then headed back down to the Fontana Marina to hike the section we missed earlier. It took us nearly 40 minutes to hike as we estimated it was 1.75 miles of trail we missed as it came out pass the Fontana Dam Shelter more commonly known as the “Fontana Hilton” as it was a very nice shelter... sorry no pic as we “slack packed” this section with nothing but our trekking poles.
In hindsight, it was good that we went back to hike this missed section as we kept our thru-hike unblemished and intact; even though I am still ticked that if the trail was better marked we would not have missed the trail on our first time through 😡. And to add insult to injury, it began raining again when we hiked this section; good thing we were already wet 🥴 .
Till next time... Happy Hiking 🥾
😋
“You gotta have passion for life and passion for something that you're going to get up and do,".
Meredith “Sunny” Eberhart
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