Night Sixteen – Sassafras Gap Shelter
My departure from the NOC went so much better than the arrival. After Mad Dog left I hung out and took my time packing up since I needed to wait for the shop to open. I dropped my key in the key drop right at 10am and walked down to the main office to pick up the phone. Apparently they had been told I was coming and I was able to grab the phone with no issues and the Outdoor center was open at 10am too when I had thought it would be another hour. I have a cousin who used to work there and he had called ahead letting them know I would be there, left a gift for me with them, and I was greeted by a bunch of helpful and knowledgeable people who helped me get the few things I knew I would need for the Smokies…most importantly a sleeping bag liner because I had been quite cold with my quilt and sleeping mat on the really cold nights. Sadly they didn’t have the phone charger I needed.
In day to day normal life I’m not nearly as attached to my phone. But for this trip, to save weight, my phone is doing quadruple duty as a camera, a journal, a guidebook, and a phone. The prospect of losing the first three was too much so I sat down outside on a bench and called the Lodge at Fontana Dam to see if I could have a package delivered there, then was comparing phone charger cords on Amazon to see what I could get there the smallest and the quickest. Just then Tom came outside and asked me if I had ordered anything yet because they just got in new charger cords on the delivery van and he thought they were the right ones. Sure enough they were and I was able to head off with everything I needed.
Biggest bonus was it hadn’t even started raining yet (forecast was for tons of rain).
I set off on the trail happy as a clam and started knocking of miles on the very big climb out of the NOC. Then the rain started. And then got heavier. I wasn’t too bothered at first because it looked like I was getting close to the top but around every turn there seemed to be more mountain. I was stuck in the land of false summits. I pulled out my phone to see how much further I had but it refused to recognize my waterlogged finger tips to unlock. I kept huddling under big Rhododendron bushes to try to get enough coverage from the rain to check my location and elevation on Guthooks but my wet hands were making everything a massive pain to do and I had nothing dry enough to use to wipe the screen and my hands off. I finally just looked at the time and decided I would hike for one more hour and if I hadn’t reached the shelter I’d just set up my tarp and ride out the rain. It wasn’t 15 minutes later that I got to the shelter to find Mad Dog and Deacon both there trying to dry out themselves.
Happy to finally be under some solid cover I got to work on peeling off my soaked layer and comparing rain stories with Deacon and Mad Dog and getting to know each other. As it got later Deacon was going to try to find a good bear hang tree but since my bear canister wasn’t full I was able to fit both his and my food in it. It was the best way I could repay him for lending me the phone cord the night before and being such a kind and helpful person.
