Day 95 - Friday, June 25, 2021

There are definitely pros and cons when you compare sleeping in a shelter vs sleeping in your tent. Some pros are:  you will stay drier in inclement weather in a shelter (notice I didn’t say “dry”,  just drier or not as wet 🙄) , you can break camp quicker in the am - not packing up a tent, you have more room (if shelter isn’t crowded) and a biggie is -  you can take a chance and hope to always use the shelters and not pack a tent optimizing base pack weight (this could also be the #1 con if you had to sleep outside in the rain w/o a tent 🤭) just to name a few. 

Some cons are: sleeping on a hard floor - which I believe is the #1 con against shelters (getting a good nights sleep is key to rest and rejuvenate your weary body), could be noisy, the little varmints 🐁 sneaking around in the middle of the night,  some hikers don’t have a clue about maintaining their “personal” space or they just don’t care, on occasion you have to deal with some “personalities” (I just imagine them getting eaten by a bear- and they wonder why I’m always smiling 😂). There have been incidents where some hikers were asked to leave a shelter due to their behavior and attitude and in some rare occasions altercations arose.  Many hikers just always use their tents for all the reasons I mentioned.  But overall most hikers are decent individuals who share the common interest and pleasures of being on the trail 😉. It’s just the 80/20 rule - 80% of issues are caused by 20% of the people 🤔.

Got up at 6 am. Last night was a little warmer, just as the weatherman predicted, the low 🤒  was 52°. The shelter had only 5 hikers so we were up, ate , packed and on the trail by 7:30 am. 

Today we are completing hiking the Great Smoky Mountains continuing from the Russel Field Shelter (180.8 NoBo) to the Fontana Dam Visitors Center (166.3 NoBo) totaling 14.5 miles. 

Farewell Russel Field Shelter…

Fire Pink - scarlet colored flower with 5 snake-tongued petals.

“Carbing” up.

This is “Gator”.  He started from Springer on June 2nd. He knows he has to flip and go north to make it through the White Mountains in NH and make Katahdin before inclement weather begins. Happy Trails “Gator”!

The Shuckstack Fire tower; 85 ft tall.

Views from the Shuckstack Fire Tower…. spectacular! You can see Fontana Dam in the foreground - our goal for today. 

Trekking our way down to Fontana Dam. 

Be Aware of Hikers Ahead… and here 🙄

 

Fontana Lake & Dam.

The spillway side of Fontana Dam.

Looking back at Shuckstack Fire Tower from Fontana Dam. 

We reached the Visitor’s Center at 5:45 pm. Now we are heading north back to Pearisburg, Va. 

The Department of the Interior reintroduced Elk back into the park several years ago. They tend to stay low in the valleys where food is more plentiful. Locals and tourist just randomly stop to take their pictures…. kinda like what I just did 🤭. 

We better keep moving… we have a 4 hour drive back to Pearisburg 😉. 

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