Fontana Dam, NC to Garenflo Gap, NC

Day 8, Thursday, October 5

Tri-Corner Knob Shelter to Davenport Gap (Mountain Moma's), 15.7 miles AT, 18.1 miles total

What an absolutely unbelievable day! I get up at 7 AM, pack and leave Tri-Corner Knob Shelter at 7:45 AM. (It seems like everything around this trip so far has revolved around the number 40 or 45.) The first climb up Tri-Corner Knob gets your heart pumping right out of the shelter. I reach Snake Den Ridge Trail (Inadu Knob) at 9:25 AM, Camel Gap at 10:20 AM and Cosby Knob Shelter at 11:00 AM.

I'm hiking steadily this morning trying to get in my miles, but also trying to take in the unbelievable scenery and shoot some pictures. I reach Low Gap about 11:30 AM and see an older gentleman sitting there on a rock. He's a member of the Great Smoky Mountain Thursday Hikers. They are generally older, retired folks from the Knoxville area who hike on Thursdays. I sit down to rest for a couple of minutes and begin talking with him. Five minutes later his wife and another couple climb up the Cosby Trail to the AT. They are all day-hiking to Mt. Cammerer to the firetower lookout. Three of them decide the climb from Cosby to Low Gap is enough and break out lunch for a rest. (They're 79, 77, 75, and 73 years old).

One spry older lady named Reba Haynes, age 77, decides she is still going to hike the remaining 2.7 miles to Mt. Cammerer, and she takes off alone. I sit and talk a few minutes longer with the first man. He convinces me that I should take the .6 mile detour from the AT out to the firetower for the view. He says it's the best vista in the Smokies. I know this is only going to make my day longer, but I'm sold.

I head out and begin the long climb up Mt. Cammerer's shoulder. After thirty minutes of steady climbing, I finally see Reba Haynes plugging along up the hill in front of me. It's all I can do to catch her. She doesn't have a pack, but she is modocking up the hill!

I finally catch up to her, but she is unaware that I'm behind her. I don't want to scare her, so I begin to scruff my boots in the leaves on the trail hoping she will hear me and turn around. She finally hears me and turns around with the biggest smile. She's not the least bit winded, just a little upset that she couldn't maintain her 2+ mile per hour pace walking up from Cosby with her husband earlier this morning. Reba and her husband live in Knoxville, TN. Reba is a retired high school English teacher, and her husband is a retired attorney. He's had some recent heart trouble and can't hike as fast as he used to. He's one of the folks who stayed behind for lunch. I keep pace with her the final mile to the Mt. Cammerer turnoff.

She helps me hang my pack in a tree and I follow her out the Mt. Cammerer Trail. She tells me about the tower, how it used to be a firetower, abandoned for many years, and has now been recently restored. As she scrambles up the final rocks ahead of me, Matt Kirk catches up from behind. He and his dad have talked about spending the night at the tower.

Reba hollers for her friends already at the tower as she scrambles up the last rocks to the base of the tower. I'm having trouble keeping up with her and I don't have a pack on now. She hollers again, and her friends holler back. I climb up the last rock steps and I'm stunned at what I see. Perched on a rock point is an old hexagonal tower with a magnificent 360 degrees view. It's lived up to its billing. The ridges below into Tennessee and over toward Waterville simply are flowing with color. I'm glad I made the trip. I shoot the last pictures on my last roll of film.

Reba takes a couple of pictures of Matt, David (who has now arrived), and me standing on the tower walkway with her camera. I give her my address and she promises to mail them to me in a few days.

Sadly I leave, but I've got to keep plugging to get to Mountain Mamas. I've still got 5.2 miles to Davenport Gap and 1.2 miles more to Mountain Moma's. All downhill!

The terrain is so rocky and rooty that I'm bruising and blistering both bottoms of my heels. I had taped my toes this morning to prevent them from blistering on the downhill, but I didn't tape my heels. I finally stop with a little more than a mile to go to the Chestnut Branch Trail and tape my left ankle and heel. It feels better immediately.

Matt Kirk flies up from behind saying they've decided to push on to Mountain Moma's as well and finish their trip a day early. He's headed down the Chestnut Branch Trail to the Big Creek Ranger Station and pick up their car there. He says they'll pick me up with their car at Davenport Gap. When I reach the Chestnut Branch Trail, David Kirk pulls up to me from behind. He asks how far ahead Matt is and that they'll see me at the road.

I stop and tape my right heel to prevent it from getting worse. I just hope that I haven't waited too long before taping up.

I stop at the Davenport Gap Shelter at 3:00 PM to see what it looks like. This is where I had originally planned to stay tonight before I knew that my brother was going to join me for the rest of this trip. He and a friend of mine from Raleigh are going to meet me tonight at Mountain Moma's. They're joining me for the weekend leg to Hot Springs.

The shelter looks pretty good. It's been recently renovated as well, and looks a lot better than most. Most of the shelters in the Smokies are below average in appearance and upkeep. It's a shame the NPS doesn't fund trail upkeep a little better.

I finally reach Davenport Gap at 3:25 PM. My hike through the Smokies is finished. It's a little sad, because it's really been an eye opening five-and-one-half days. I never knew this kind of topography existed so close to home. I want to come back and take more time next time.

I sit my pack on a rock beside the road and pull my boots and socks off. The taped heels haven't gotten any worse, but they both look pretty beat up. The tape has also cut my left ankle a little. Tomorrow they're both going to be a little tender.

While I'm resting and waiting for the Kirk's to pick me up, I catch up some in my journal, and look at the maps. Several cars pass by, but I get the feeling this is a remote spot. Either you have to know where you are going or you're lost. Davenport Gap sits right on the NC/TN state line at the edge of the Great Smokies. The road is paved on the Tennessee side, dirt on the NC side.

A car pulls up behind me having come from the Tennessee side. A lady rolls the window down and says, "We're lost!" The man driving leans over her and asks, "Where's Gatlingsburg?" I know right away they ain't from around here. I point back generally in the direction from which they've just come and tell them it's 30 miles thataway. The woman moans and says, "Oh no! Don't tell me we've got to go back up that mountain!" I say, "Fraid so..." As they turn around in the middle of the road I see the Ohio license plates on the car. Figures...

After waiting for about thirty minutes and seeing no David or Matt, I begin walking down the hill to Mountain Moma's. It's only 1.2 miles and after covering the distance I've done today, it should be a piece of cake.

Several cars pass, but no one offers a ride including the Park Service ranger who stops long enough to ask if I've just come off the AT. It's ok, though. This mile will work out some of the soreness. I reach Mountain Moma's at 4:30 PM. I pay for three bunk slots and order a cheeseburger and fries platter and iced tea to drink. The woman behind the counter says it's sweet tea. I didn't know there was any other kind. The cheeseburger platter lives up to its billing.

After eating, I take my gear to the bunkhouses, if you can call them that. I have a choice of the bunkhouses, pink or green. I have a shack at Lake Norman that looks better than these things, but at least this place has a grill and a shower. Not too clean, but it has porcelain. I sort out my dirty clothes and walk around to the shower. The washer and dryer at Mountain Moma's are both broken and don't seem like they will ever be repaired. I wash out my clothes and hang them on the line in front of Mountain Moma's "Hilton" to dry.

The shower and washed clothes make me feel brand new. By now it's getting dusky dark down here in the hollow. I get some popcorn and a Mountain Dew and finish sorting food and writing in my journal; waiting for Mike and Bob to arrive. Can't wait to see the look on their faces when they see this place.

Today has been another gorgeous day. The forecast for showers has failed to materialize. It has just been beautiful. The forecast is now calling for showers tomorrow with the temperature headed for the thirties by the weekend. Still a chance for snow on Saturday. We'll see.

Mountain Moma's closes at 8 PM, so I'm the only one around as I wait for Mike and Bob. Hickory nuts falling on the tin roof of the car garage beside my cabin startle me every time they hit. Beardog, the big black Labrador retriever wanders around the cabins and parking lot on patrol. A four-month-old Husky pup is tied near the door to Mountain Moma's. I suspect he is in training.

Shortly after 9:30 PM, I start making the "bunk" for the night. It's a hole, but not much worse than the shelters in the Smokies, so I guess it'll do for the night.

Mike and Bob finally roll in shortly after 10:00 PM. We unload and sort gear and pack packs and talk until almost midnight. I give them the choice of which bunkhouse we use. They choose to stay in the "Green" building, the "Mountain Moma's Hilton." Other than the busted out window with the glass still lying on the bunk and the dirty floor, it's a charming place. Top bunks, even. We sleep lightly over the course of the night. I made the mistake of drinking tow big glasses of iced tea and a Mountain Dew before bedtime. First caffeine in over a week and it shows.

I finally fall asleep around 1 AM, but the night is continuously punctuated by the sound of hickory nuts falling and hitting our cabin's roof or the garage shed next to us. Déjà vu all over again.