Straight chilling and resting for the zero day at the Hike Inn…nothing exciting to report today. Got to watch all my stories!

I’m super excited to head out into the Smokies and Tennessee tomorrow for some big mileage days. It’s not clear if there is any cell coverage in the park, so it might be a few days before I can update the blog.

We had a good bit of rain last night and the tarp did not leak, so that was good. We hiked about 11 miles of rugged terrain down into Fontana Dam around lunch.

NC rugged trail

The dam itself is cool and is the largest east of the Rockies.

Fontana Lake

AT goes right over the dam, Smokies in background

Daaaamn

We decided to stay tonight and tomorrow at the nearby Hike Inn. Jeff from the inn picked us up and his wife Nancy took us into Robbinsville for dinner and groceries. Our third maildrop with resupplies was here when we arrived (Thanks Ma and Pa Hnatow).

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we have our first true zero day with no hiking at all since we started, so that will be really good to rest our sore feet, knees, and muscles for a whole day. Jeff from the Hike Inn also told us about 2/3 of attempted thru-hikers quit by or before Fontana Dam and that we made it through the toughest and most rugged part of the trail (outside of New Hampshire and Maine), so that was really encouraging to hear.

Vital stats :
Mood – psyched
Physical state – sore but good
Smell – so much better than this morning
Song stuck in my head – Cuckoo Song by A Silent Film