Fire Tower Climb and Glowing eyes in the Night

View from the Shuckstack fire tower


Fontana Dam, enter the Smoky Mountain National Park 2200 ft up to rickety fire tower and on to Mollie's Ridge. 12.5 miles

We woke up in the hotel room and packed up. We had to get out of there quick or we were at risk for taking another Zero Day. We headed up to check out and get a big buffet breakfast at the lodge. As we were coming in for breakfast, all of our erstwhile cronies showed up from the trail to check in to the hotel (or at least get some breakfast). We all ate together and then we of the Brotherproof crew headed off to the post office to mail out some more extraneous gear and pick up a few last minute items from the general store before we caught a shuttle back to where we came off of the trail the day before. There should be a name for this. I’d like to call it the Punch Point or the Resumption. That’s it, I like it; “The Resumption.” I’m going to call it that from now on. “Let’s get back to the Resumption, Fellas!”

It didn’t rain yesterday in accordance with The Prophesy as ordained by our Lord and Savior, The National Weather Service and texted to our cell phones by the Father, our Dad; but, it felt like it might today. It was muggy as we hiked over the Fontana Dam and into the Smokies. It’s a huge dam and we got a lot of pictures and wasted a lot of time at the visitor center where they had an enormous relief map of The Smoky Mountain National Forest as well as the projects accomplished by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). We finally got out of the air-conditioned visitor center and someone pointed off to a barely visible fire tower on a distant mountaintop and informed us that we would be there in only 3 or 4 miles. It looked like an eternity both away and up. That’s what matters out here in case you hadn’t figured it out yet: Distance and Elevation. I couldn't believe we were supposed to be there in just over an hour. We were about to embark on a journey on the life-sized relief map of the Smokies. Scale of one foot = one foot.

In two day's we'll be at the highest point on the Appalachian Trail. At Fontana Dam we stood at 1700 feet, going to 4000 feet in just over three miles, then up and down several times over the famous “Rocky Top” and “thunderhead” to 6600 feet in a couple of days at Klingman’s Dome. Then we planned to resupply again in some town called Gatlinburg Tennessee. Today we would cross into the third state on our journey of 14 states. We hoped to reach the Tennessee/North Carolina Border today and follow it all the way through “The Smokies,” which also boasts the highest concentration of Black Bears in the World.

We made it up the legendary Shuckstack climb to the fire tower and precariously negotiated its rickety, rotten steps. We were there with the Walkens, parents of one of the thru-hikers we'd been seeing occasionally. After taking some pictures from what seemed to be a very unsafe perch, we then moved on. We had intended to get past Mollie's Ridge shelter; but by starting so late, it looked like we would have to settle there for the night.

When we got to Mollie's Ridge Shelter, it was pretty full and the ridge runner, Jim, was waiting on some reservations to show up. You have to make reservations to stay in the shelter in the Smokies. We planted our stakes out in the field and set up camp. I met some cool guys from Tennessee and we continued to see some of the same folks we’ve been running into for the past several days. We ate our usual meal and after dark, as I was going to my hammock, I saw a pair of eyes shining yellow out there in the dark. They were tracking me and I didn't like it one bit. I couldn't tell, from my headlamp, how big or just what the creature was but it moved like a cat and I shuffled out loudly toward it and yelled a little to get it to run away. It kept moving a little and then hunkering down. I thought I heard it hiss before it finally took off, I hoped for good. Later that night some thru-hikers came in and said they heard something running toward them and growling at them; which, would explain why the bastards were singing so damn loudly as they strolled in at 2AM.

David AKA "Jukebox"

Website:
http://www.brotherproof.com
Blog:
http://brotherproof.blogspot.com
Pictures:
http://www.photobucket.com/brotherproof
Film:
http://www.youtube.com/wbaf1
Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/brotherproof
David's Website:
http://www.davidpatrone.com

Fontana Dam and My secret GORP Recipe

White Blaze on Fontana Dam


Brown Fork Shelter to Fontana Dam 13 Miles

Early rise: 6:30 and I’m up with the birds. The birds always wake me up. They are really annoying. It is good for the bird population that I am not armed while out here.

We split camp about 7:37 and headed out with Dad texting us the threat of afternoon rain. We originally wanted to get in to Fontana Dam and resupply while it rained; but after a phone call, we decided to stay at their hotel because they had such a good deal. That sounded all nice and fuzzy but we were going to have to get there first. There was a big altitude drop into Fontana Dam, which meant knee and foot punishment. We had to get down to 1700 feet and big drops are sometimes more painful than tough climbs. My feet are already throbbing when I put on my “in-camp shoes,” let alone my boots with a 50 lb pack on my back. We're getting faster though, and it feels good to leave camp before anyone else for a change.

We rested at the first shelter we passed and then got back on it. I bonked on the next big hill and we took it easy until I got my blood sugar back up. This bonking has got to stop. It makes me weird for the rest of the day. The climb to "High Top" was a bear but we kept good time and got in to the visitor center by 1330. We called the shuttle and used the bathrooms while we waited for it to take us into the strange town of Fontana Dam.

The hotel was awesome! It was reminiscent of an old hunting lodge with boar heads and bears and bobcats up on the walls, with a modern quality. The whole town was actually a resort of some sort. There was a pool, actually two, and tennis courts, several places to eat, a Laundromat, post office, general store, etc.. It was weird, like some kind of compound. We weren't complaining though. Our room was sweet like a Vegas Suite and the burgers were proper and meaty.

We roamed around, naked under our rain gear as our clothing washed and dried. Cyclone and Rolex both picked up new Big Agnes inflatable floor mats for under their sleeping bags. I was envious. The town of Fontana Dam had nearly everything except for Cell Service on the whole compound; nothing, nada, zip. It was weird, we had Internet though and I posted some GPS stuff but didn't have time to type out blogs. Cyclone and I played a few rounds of Big Game Hunter in the arcade and I got to play the guitar a bit. We watched a lot of TV in the room as we ziplocked our resupply.

About Re-supply; in case you were wondering, this is what we eat:

Wake up:
Two Breakfast bars or oatmeal breakfast or Pop Tarts, something or other at least 450 calories

Throughout the day we eat about a pound of GORP or Trail Mix to keep blood sugar up and to avoid having to take a lunch (From Wikipedia: Backronyms for the word gorp, an alternate name for trail mix, are Good Old Raisins and Peanuts, Granola Oats Raisins and Peanuts, or Gobs Of Raw Protein. These probably are folk etymology. The Oxford English Dictionary cites a 1913 reference to the verb gorp, meaning "to eat greedily".)

1 clif bar or similar energy bar if available (230 cal)

Dinner:
One Pound of Spaghetti and 1 Pound of sauce split between three of us (650 cal)
One Pkg of Ramen (190 cal.)

So we prep all of the spaghetti beforehand by breaking it all up to fit in the pot and we make spaghetti sauce packets by putting 8oz of tomato paste in a bag with some seasoning. We mix up all the GORP and divide it up into 1 bags per day. We remove as much packaging as we can and we pack it up in our personal Bear Bags. You have to be able to separate anything that smells like anything so the bears don't get curious and start sniffing around your pack or tent. We mix all the GORP in the hotel ice bucket and use the plastic cup to scoop into ziplock bags. We do all this sitting in our underwear on the floor in the hotel room. Now there's a picture for you before you go off to bed... Sweet dreams.

Oh yeah! My GORP recipe:
When I was a kid and we used to hike in Boy Scouts, your GORP recipe was a point of pride and investigation. Gorp recipes were legendary in their complexity and secrecy. In this trip we’ve tried to keep it simple so that we don’t spent too much time trying to resupply, not to mention we don’t usually have a kitchen so we have to be able to mix our GORP on the fly.

My Long Distance Hiking GORP recipe is simple:

1. Two big bags of M&M Peanut (dark Choc when I can find it)
2. Three 12oz cans of Honey Roasted Peanuts
3. An equal amount of Sesame crunch as peanuts (If no Sesame then Pretzels)
Sometimes
4. 2 small boxes of raisins or Craisins
Separate this up into 12, quart-sized freezer bags and snack on this all day (12 bags @ about 1100 calories per bag). Keep in mind we are making this for three people for four days each guy eating one bag per day.

Don’t get too fat!

David AKA "Jukebox"

Website:
http://www.brotherproof.com
Blog:
http://brotherproof.blogspot.com
Pictures:
http://www.photobucket.com/brotherproof
Film:
http://www.youtube.com/wbaf1
Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/brotherproof
David's Website:
http://www.davidpatrone.com