Day 12 of AT in NC/TN NOBO

Fontana Marina (mile marker 164.7) to Mollies Ridge Shelter (#177.7).
Daily Mileage: 13.0

Pretty day, temps @ 70 and clear. 9:00 am. Shuttle driver “Shua” (he’s not a fan of his name Joshua, so his trail name is just the last part 🤓) took me the mile down from the Lodge to the Marina to continue where I left off.

1.6 miles in on a paved road, I hit the Fontana Dam Visitor Center which was very interesting. The dam is the largest east of the Mississippi and was built over a 2.5 year span in the early 40’s. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Roosevelt knew he had to bolster our air forces, so he order a dam to be built in Fontana that would ultimately employ 1,200 workers over 2.5 years. The hydroelectric energy from the dam would be used by
local steel co’s which in turn produced over 50,000 planes for the war effort. What is now the Fontana Village with its Lodge buildings, the cabins, etc. all used to be where the workers and their families stayed in the 1940’s. Pretty amazing piece of history.

1.2 miles after walking over the dam, I dropped off my Smoky Mountains permit into the box and headed 10.2 miles straight up into the woods, destination Mollies Ridge Shelter for the evening. There were 4 hikers in the shelter and 8 of us in tents. It was a clear night at the campground, and a bear (or 2) were heard grunting and sniffing around our tents between 2-3:30 am, which was a bit disconcerting. But our food bags were hung up on the cables, and we were all left alone. We would hear bear each of the next 3 nights at around the same time. The Smokies are renown for their bear population as well as for their population of wild hogs.Read more