Springer Mtn, GA to Fontana Dam, NC

Day 16, Wednesday, June 7

Brown Fork Shelter to Fontana Dam, NC, 13.4 miles

Last Day! I'm up at 6:30 AM. It's 42 degrees and cold. I was fairly warm last night, but started to get cool at daybreak. Hot breakfast this morning. Hot lemonade, grits, and Pop-Tarts. Big breakfast, big day. I'm slow and deliberate in packing. "Skeedaddle" was up first and had already started packing gear when I got up.

M&L leave the shelter as I finish my last minute packing. I'm away at 8:05 AM, leaving Phree and Jason behind at the shelter, still in bed. Phree blows by thirty minutes later before I catch up to M&L. He's still hiking twenty and carrying sixty.

I catch up to M&L a few minutes later, and we take our first break at 9:30 AM at Cody Gap. 10.6 miles to go. We reach Yellow Creek Road at 10:45 AM and pause for an early lunch. Jason catches up and joins us for lunch. We rest longer than he does, but we later pass him taking a nap halfway down the hill to the dam.

We reach the road to Fontana Dam Shelter, known as the "Fontana Hilton" at 2:45 PM. Shedding our packs and putting on our sandals, the three of us walk down for a look see. I've been to the "Hilton" a couple of times. It's the best shelter I've ever seen on the trail. It has real bathrooms close by, and showers up at the visitors' center.

No one from our group signed in here last night, so I imagine they hit the Hiker Inn hostel or the Fontana Inn at the Village, both close by. We walk back up the hill to where we left our packs and limp down the hill to the visitors' center at the dam. And to the snack bar next door that awaits. I drink a Coke and eat two Klondike ice-cream bars. Heaven. M&L do likewise.

We take our time, sunning, showering, and getting ready for Alice to pick us up at 5 PM. While M&L clean up, I sit on the steps in the sun above the Visitors Center to rest. It's over. Two weeks and two days of the most challenging adventure I've ever experienced. It hasn't sunk in yet that I'm done. Right now I'm sitting in the sun, a gentle breeze blowing the flags around on the TVA flagpole ringing in the breeze. This whole trip has been an out-of-body experience in a sense. It's been real every day with the challenges of the trail, yet unreal in the sense that once a day is finished, you're ready for another.

I think M&L are a little sad that I'm leaving them here. I know I am. It's been fun for the last eight to ten days and now they go on alone. We've been good company together. Every day/hour one of us is dealing with some kind of personal challenge. Hurting feet, legs, blisters, no energy, you name it. Together we've been a support group for each other. Tomorrow, they go into the Smokies alone. Kind of sad. I'm sure they are a little concerned about being the last Northbounders on the trail at this point, but I'm sure they will meet some other section hikers to join up with from time to time. That's the magic of the trail.

When I get out of the shower, Alice is already here. She's a little early and has already met M&L. We load our packs in the van, and head for Fontana Village. We drop M&L's laundry off at the Laundromat and head up the hill to the restaurant at the Fontana Village Inn. The whole place looks deserted. I guess we are still early in the season for the folks that will arrive soon for the summer.

We eat a huge meal with big salads. It's amazing how much one can eat now after being out on the trail for a while. We pick up M&L's laundry and drive back up the hill to the dam. M&L plan to spend tonight at the "Hilton". It's getting dark as we help them carry their packs down to the shelter. I leave the walking stick that I found at Unicoi Gap at the shelter for someone else. I wonder how far up and down the trail it will eventually travel. It's done me well. I'd never have made it up and down some of the hills we've crossed without it. I hope it helps someone else as well as it's helped me.

There are two guys at the shelter so at least M&L will have some company tonight. We say our good-byes and hug for the last time. I'm not very good at good-byes and I sense that M&L aren't either. We leave them and walk back up the hill to the waiting van. I can't help but feel sad. I'm closing a chapter on my adventure, wishing it could continue.

The ride home is quieter than usual. I stay lost in the recollections of the last two weeks' adventures. It seems so long ago that I was at Amicalola, looking up the hill and wondering what was in store for me. I've learned so much over the last two weeks and yet it seems like it could have been a dream now that it's over. I begin to tell Alice about some of it.

We get home shortly before midnight. I'm tired and after unloading my gear into the kitchen, I head for bed. Just another day on the Appalachian Trail.