$3 Per Ride
Day 16 of the Trail: 12.5 miles hiked
Today was a sleep in kinda day. We were so exhausted, the camp site kinda sucked, I kept sliding down hill in my bag, it sprinkled on us, the wind was blowing hard, and it was freezing cold. Yeah, we laid in our bags a couple extra hours this morning.
The good news it was an easy hike compared to yesterday but it still hurt, mainly due to the fact we were still recovering from yesterday. We got into Fontana around 2 pm. When you get here there is a bathroom right off the trail in a parking lot. There is also a phone you can use to get a shuttle to take you to Fontana Lodge. It's $3 per person per trip but it's worth it. The shuttle guy gets there pretty quick and will take you to the lodge or the the general store. We went to the lodge first so we could make lunch in the bistro. The bistro closes at 2:30 pm so we made it right in time to grab an awesome burger. After that it's a short walk down the hill to the general store. There is also laundry service there open 9 am - 9 pm. The general store is slightly marked up but there is a good selection of hiker food.
We all resupplied with four days of food. Which is enough food plus a small buffer to get us 42 miles to our jump off point (Newfound Gap) which will take us into Gatlinburg where we can resupply again for the rest of the Smokies. Basically our plan is to do the Smokies in two halves with a stop off in Gatlinburg. That's the boring nitty gritty but hey, I am exhausted. By the way, tomorrow the weather is supposed to be decent but after that it's cold and rainy the next three days!
Yah!!
