I saw Smoky in the smokies

Day 13 - 4/23/10
What a day. I usually get mad when the weathermen get forecasts wrong,
but I can't complain today. There was supposedly going to be afternoon
showers, but it was sunshine all day, with only a few clouds later on.
Perfect hiking weather.

I was up about 7:15 and got out on the trail around 8 I'd say. The
first half mile was crossing the Fontana Dam, which was really neat. I
took some pictures on it and one next to the smoky mountain entrance
sign that came after the dam. Then it was all uphill most of the day.
I did maybe a mile with Gravy and Kentucky, but soon shot ahead of
them by myself. It stayed that way the rest of the day until about 1PM
when I met another hiker named Not Worthy.

I talked with him all the way up to the first shelter called Mollies
Ridge. I guess he lived in Maine for six years and was in the coast
guard. I told him about my grandfather being in the coast guard and he
said the Brewer name sounded familiar, so maybe you know him Far Far.
I don't know his real name though, sorry. When we were at Mollies Not
Worthy went down the hill for some water, and a minute later he yelled
something up to me. I couldn't hear what he said so I gave him a half-
committal grunt. He spoke again, and this time I understood. "There's
a bear down here." Whoa. I hopped up and grabbed my camera, and then
went down the hill to where Not Worthy was and sure enough there was a
bear hanging by the creek. It looked at us, kind of like it was saying
what's up? and then sauntered off. I couldn't get a good picture
though because I didn't want to get too close.

After that I went on past another shelter and there was a guy passed
out in there. He had a bandage wrapped around his head like he had a
toothache or something. Kinda strange. Now I'm at Spence Field
shelter, and I've met some new hikers I haven't seen before. One of
them, Poodle, gave me a second dinner so I'm really stuffed tonight.

Some other cool things today was I went up to the top of this fire
tower on Shuckstack Mt. and had an amazing view of the dam and Fontana
lake. I also saw a wild turkey out here, plus millions of squirrels
and chipmunks. Big day for seeing animals. And not that I'm keeping
track of this, but according to my guidebook I now have less than 2000
miles to go. Pretty neat.

I also wanted to clarify something. When I said in an earlier post
that everything is dry and dead, that was inaccurate. When you get
below a certain elevation things start becoming much more green. Like
when I went down to the NOC, that place was below 1700 ft. so
everything was green and alive. Up here I'm at 4900 ft. and you hardly
see a bud on these trees. You can actually guage your elevation based
on the level of green around you.

Also thought I'd mention the beard is coming along nicely. Can't
imagine what it'll be like at the end of this.

Chance of rain tomorrow is 70%, so I probably won't make it over
Clingman's Dome, but let's hope the weathermen are wrong again.

Total miles: 180.4