3/24-3/30: Fontana Dam, NC -> Standing Bear Farm, NC

Ah, the Smokies. The roughly 70 mile traverse of Great Smoky Mountains National Park was easily the most anticipated section of trail thus far, and it did not disappoint: it was both Sophie’s and my favorite section so far! The Smokies were at once impressive, humbling, breathtaking, stressful, and exhilarating.

Content warning: vomit. Skip the next paragraph if you get easily grossed out or don’t like foul language.

Daniel, Nick, and Adelina left us feeling very excited to enter the Smokies the next day. However, before we could, I learned an important lesson the hard way that night. (Lots of learning opportunities on the trail, in case you haven’t noticed.) At lunch, Sophie and I had gotten a pizza to go to eat for dinner later. I ended up eating two slices that night, but I was still pretty full from my huge burger from lunch, and went to bed feeling like shit as a result of overeating. I knew it would take a miracle to make it through the night, and sure enough, at around 11pm I awoke and hurried up the hill to the bathroom. I was on the toilet when I ended up having to puke anyway, unfortunately (not pictured). It felt awful; it was easily the lowest point of the AT experience so far. Hey, I’m not trying to sugarcoat the trail experience here. Funnily enough, the biggest takeaway in my head at that moment was “oh no, what a waste of nutrients.” Predictably, I immediately felt better afterwards, and felt extremely lucky to be in a real bathroom so it was easy to clean up after myself. It could have been way worse. I went back to bed, slept pretty well after that, and felt fine in the morning, ready and excited to enter the Smokies. The moral here is despite growing hiker hunger, I need to listen to what my body is telling me and be mindful of overeating as well. I sincerely hope it won’t take another lesson for that one to sink in.

The next day, we crossed over Fontana Dam, which is part of the AT, and did a few miles of road walking (ew) before depositing our permits and entering Great Smoky Mountains National Park!

It was all uphill from there, literally. The way the Smokies works is essentially you have a big climb up to the ridgeline, then wiggle along that ridge for 60-some miles, then have a big climb down to leave the park. We lucked out on our big day of uphill with nice weather, and during the climb it didn’t feel much different than the rest of North Carolina outside the park. But when we got to the top and started along that big ridgeline, it was like a switch had been flipped. The Smokies were so GREEN. There was thicker tree cover and much more substantial undergrowth. We even found ourselves upon a beautiful flowery mountaintop at Does Knob, which felt like an exciting new environment.

We spent most of that day hiking with our friends Tacos, Dex, and Malka, which was a lot of fun. It felt really nice to be included in their little “tramily.”

At some point, we crossed into a new state, Tennessee, with very little fanfare. We’ll be playing jump rope with the state line for another 200+ miles before we leave NC for good, so it wasn’t a huge deal, but it was still fun to realize we had reached our third state. Unfortunately, the practical implications of this meant that the shelters had no privies; some sort of TN law makes them impossible. This is a major bummer to say the least. For the rest of the Smokies, we kept checking whether each shelter we were staying at was in NC or TN for this important reason. That night was Mollies Ridge Shelter, in TN, and we set up in the shelter for the night. GSMNP requests that thru-hikers stay in the shelter whenever possible rather than tenting in order to better preserve the land around the shelters. We followed this all throughout our time in the park, but a lot of thru-hikers tented anyway, so we never had a problem finding a spot in the shelter.

The next morning, we saw a deer!!! Yes, it was only a deer, grazing by our shelter, but it was super exciting to me since somehow this was the first large wildlife we had seen at all!

Sophie and I spent all day hiking with Dex. It was pleasant to have her company and we had fun teaching her Contact and the Got It game.

That day we enjoyed a nice break and gorgeous views on the summit of aptly-named Rocky Top with some more of our friends. We could clearly see the imminent peak of Clingman’s Dome, and it was exciting that we’d be reaching the highest point on the entire AT the very next day!

From there, the second half of our day was absolutely brutal. It was way harder than I expected, with tough rocky terrain. Luckily the weather was good. Despite all the uphill of the day before, this was much more difficult; the terrain made all the difference. It was a relief to reach the shelter, relax, and stretch out in the sun. We had a fun group around that night, including our friend Smiley, who we had met in Georgia, and a new friend Little Bear. In general there were more people around the shelters in the Smokies, since you’re not supposed to stealth camp. It made for a fun experience seeing friends and meeting new people every night.

I woke up that night with worrying knee pain. I was terrified that I was experiencing the same quad tendonitis that Sophie had dealt with. Not knowing what else to do, I elevated my leg above my clothes bag and tried to give it more rest for the remainder of the night. To my great relief, it felt fine in the morning and those symptoms didn’t bother me again.

I tried to take it extra slow that day, and it ended up being a fantastic day. Sophie and I have the best conversations while we hike! We saw some more deer, and revelled in hiking through a coniferous forest for what was surprisingly the first time on trail. It was wonderful to be surrounded by spruce and fir trees as we ascended towards Clingman’s Dome. Bless my northern heart; it felt like home.

Soon enough, we reached Clingman’s Dome, which is the highest point on the AT and also falls at exactly 200.0 miles! They must have done that on purpose. It was exciting to be there and see the sweeping panoramic views from the observation tower. We stayed around for hours, waiting to watch the sunset. It was a nice time hanging around with a large group of friends and cooking dinner beneath the tower. One by one, most of the group gave up on seeing the sunset and left to head to the next shelter, but we stuck around with a group of eight that included our friend S’mores and a new friend Camo.

We were very glad we stayed. We watched the sunset from the observation tower, which was admittedly only a decent sunset, but it was still cool to watch it in a very special place. From there, we embarked on a night hike! With headlamps on, the whole group of us hiked about three more miles, finally arriving at the shelter at 10pm. It was by far the latest we had been up while on trail. Night hiking was such a fun experience! It was cool to feel like we had each other’s backs as a larger group than just Sophie and me. It was a fun “change of pace” day in several ways, from cooking dinner in a place we weren’t planning to camp, to hiking in the dark.

In all, it was one of my favorite days on trail. Despite it being a longer day than the previous one (by mileage as well as obviously by time), it was definitely an easier one. Once again, the terrain made all the difference.

The next day was our longest mileage yet, and it was quite the interesting and fun day! Sophie and I hiked into Newfound Gap in the morning, where we cross the only major road through the park. It also represents the halfway point through the Smokies. There were so many people and cars there! It honestly gave me a sense of culture shock to see that right on the trail. Once I got over that, the tourists were very curious and friendly and I enjoyed speaking with them. The next few miles paralleled a popular day hiking route, so we hiked alongside a ton of people; it felt very strange after 200+ miles of being basically alone on the trail. Our friend Malka joined Sophie and me for this section, and it was a lot of fun to talk with her and get to know her better.

Unfortunately, along this section of trail, I also had my first real fall. I slipped on some wet rocks at a water source and scraped up my hand, arm, and knee. It apparently looked pretty gnarly from Sophie and Malka’s vantage point up the trail. It was awkward to have that happen in front of so many strangers, and sit there dealing with it while so many day hikers went by. Sophie and Malka were incredibly helpful with the first aid in my time of need; I appreciated them so much. Luckily it wasn’t too bad; we’ve all gotten scraped up before. And hey, it took over 200 miles before something like that happened to me, which is pretty good. I was still shaken up by it, though. What really got to me was that it was my own doing. Accidents happen; we might trip and fall and we have to be ok with that. But in this case, I had done something stupid, climbing up on a rock in an attempt to communicate up the trail, and I had faced the consequences. It could have been so much worse.

With my hand taped up and fueled up with a protein bar, I mentally recovered pretty quickly and the rest of the day was really fun. Sophie and I loved the short side trip to Charlie’s Bunion, a cool rock formation with unique views of the park. (That’s where all the day hikers were heading; the trail cleared out really quickly after that.)

Later on, we hiked through a drizzle and even some light hail. Nothing we can’t handle; thankfully the hail was small enough that it was just a cool experience and not a concern. We also finally got to see some of the titular “smoke” of the Smokies in the valleys below. That day ended up being over 16 miles counting the lengthy side trails to the shelters on either end, making it our longest day ever! I felt great after our big day.

After a cold night, we awoke to discover that a mouse had chewed some holes in one of Sophie’s shirts 😦 Those darned shelter mice! At this point, we were definitely starting to miss the privacy of our tents, and this was just one more reason.

There was frost on the branches and snow in the air as we hiked on that morning! It was beautiful and magical. It almost made the frigid morning worth it; I hadn’t been missing those. It did warm up eventually though, and Sophie and I had a great morning talking about cooking, among other things. We talk about food a LOT.

We stopped for lunch on a gorgeous sunny ridge with Tacos, Malka, Dex, and Enoch, a section hiker we had met. It was warm and very relaxing, which continued throughout the rest of our relatively easy day and into the evening. Sophie and I played some cards, and we went to bed excited to leave the Smokies the next day, even though we had loved our time there.

One reason we were excited to be done with the Smokies was a stressful one: we were running out of food. In particular, we were dangerously low on snacks to fuel us throughout the day, and had to ration them over our last couple days. We had supplied enough food for 6 days – but it was what would’ve carried us through 6 days beforehand. We failed to anticipate how much we’d need as we hit increased daily mileage and especially cumulative mileage: it’s one thing to do a 12 mile day, it’s another to hike 12+ miles for 6 days in a row. It was the first time that Sophie and I had experienced food insecurity. Obviously, this doesn’t even compare to what millions of people go through every single day, but it was still a unique challenge and stressor that gave us a new perspective on this important concern and unfortunate reality.

The next day was our big descent out of the park. Before the downhill started in earnest, we took a very long side trail to the Mt. Cammerer fire tower that many people had promised was worth it.

It totally was! The trail out there reminded us of Cape Cod, and the unique fire tower would not have looked out of place as a beachside villa. The views of the Smokies behind us as well as the surprisingly flat expanse of Tennessee below were spectacular.

It was all downhill from there – but only literally. The descent was actually easier than we had feared. We spent the latter half of the day hiking with Enoch, who was super nice, and we really enjoyed getting to know him!

Soon after we had left the park, we crossed under Interstate 40. It was our first interstate crossing, and it was completely surreal to just be walking on the road underneath a big highway overpass.

After that, and after an unexpectedly tough uphill (who put that there on our downhill day?), we arrived at Standing Bear Farm, a hostel right near the trail that was also our destination for the night. It also marked the endpoint of Enoch’s section hike, and when we got there, he offered to take us to get some town food! We eagerly accepted the generous offer. We got good sandwiches at a general store & grill in the middle of nowhere. They clearly weren’t used to thru-hikers coming in to feed their hiker hunger, since they kept trying to give Sophie & my food to Enoch! It was very amusing. The three of us had a great time hanging out; it made for a wonderful conclusion to our Smokies experience. Enoch was an awesome trail friend and trail angel all in one!

The vibe at Standing Bear was cool; it felt very hippie and crunchy and Sophie and I fit right in. That night, we had a great time singing together while Sophie played guitar and several enthusiastic hikers looked on. We also had an interesting time washing our clothes by hand. We felt like we were in Little House on the Prairie, and frankly really struggled with it, but it was quite the experience.

Coming out of GSMNP, it felt like the world was our oyster. There had been so much talk about and hype for the Smokies up to this point that I didn’t have any idea what to expect from the upcoming part of the trail. We absolutely loved our time in the Smokies; I couldn’t wait to see what the trail had in store for us next!