Day 21 - April 21st - Fontana Dam to Mollies Ridge Shelter - 12.1 miles

This is a really hard day. We are driven back down to the trail by Mike from Hikers Inn. He gives us 'the lecture' and I think we got a bit extra as well - 'the international hiker' version - to scare us to death. I don't remember much of it except to 'shake out your boots before you put them on or poisonous spiders will bite you'.

We cross the dam wall, enter the Smoky Mountains National Park and climb the ridge called the Shuckstack. By lunchtime we have ascended 2,000 ft. This is followed by another 1000' of climbing over the afternoon. We climb slowly in a steady rhythym, and are passed by Turtle hiking with Mellow Yellow, Mr T and Food Network and Paradise.

Alison crossing the dam wall into the Smoky Mountains

We arrive at the observation tower for lunch. Digby climbs it. I make it to the first landing and decide the exposure is too scary. The views are spectacular on a sunny day. Then there is a long drag to the shelter which never seems to arrive. We are exhausted.

View of the ridge we have just climbed in the middle foreground and Fontana Dam
from the observation tower.

Half a mile from the shelter and I see my first Black Bear, only 30 metres in front of me on the track. It is huge and runs off 30m into the bush. I show Digby, and he sees it too. We look at the bear through the undergrowth and the bear looks at us. We stay locked in this position for about 10 minutes and then the bear ambles away. Very fluffy, and like a giant panda. I am thrilled and excited - first bear for the trail. When we get to the shelter nobody else had seen it, so we felt very honoured. Bears are protected in the National Park but in the surrounding forests they hunt the bears with packs of dogs. This cruelty is something I find really difficult to stomach. In Maine the so called hunters set up baits for bears - stale donuts from 'Dunkin Donuts' fast food chain, wait for the bears to come in to eat the donuts and shoot them. And this is all officially sanctioned.

Mollies Ridge Shelter is very luxurious and we meet up with a lot of hikers that we already know. 'Paradise' is there. We meet 'Stickbuilt' and 'Tater Chip' for the first time, and learn the names of a very fast young couple - Dewlap and Rainer - who had passed us before, and meet Fireball, a young German who was given his trail name when his camp stove exploded.  There is a big fire and everyone is asleep by 9.00pm. This is our first night sleeping a shelter. In the Smoky Mountain National Park there are rules - up until now hiking has been fairly easy with few restrictions. In the Smokies you must stay in a shelter, not a tent to reduce the damage to the vegetation.  No dogs are allowed - hikers with dogs have had them collected by boarding kennels for the traverse.

Mollie Ridge Shelter

Hikers at Mollies Ridge Shelter