Hazel Creek - Part 4 - Final Chapter

My last trip post stopped in the middle of day three of our trip. We were heading for the lake to follow the shoreline back to our boats because our feet (Smith's especially) were not up for the ridge traverse. We made it down to Fontana Lake around noon.

We were rather discouraged at the daunting trip ahead, but remained optimistic. We were dealt another bad hand when we discovered that, ironically, the Lakeshore trail did not follow any kind of shore. It was ridge after ridge after ridge. Great. Just great. Forget making good time anymore. This was going to be a grunt-fest. We stopped to rest and collect water about two hours later. Smith pulled out his cellphone. I joked at him. We couldn't get a signal at the lodge on the inhabited side of the lake. What makes him think he's going to get a signal in the park?

Well, he did, somehow. That seriously changed the rest of the trip. After a very brief discussion which involved nothing more than a glance, Smith called his girlfriend who, in turn, called the marina to see if they could meet us with the pontoon boat. Hooray! They agreed to meet us at the next campsite, just two miles away.

So, onward we hiked, and hiked, and hiked, and hiked. Something wasn't right. We should have been at the campsite by now. The next time we stopped on a ridge so I tried to get a signal on my GPS unit. Great! (sigh) We overshot the campsite by about two miles. Later, we figured out that the campsite was only accessible by boat. The trail was some 200' higher up on the ridge. We were in between campsites and had to make a decision. First things first, we attempted another call on the phone. Amazingly enough, it worked again. We knew from talking to some people earlier that the campsite ahead of us was on the water and the trail went right by it. So, through a relay of phone calls the plan was changed to meet us at the campsite 98 ahead. Coincidentally, earlier we had determined we would stop for the day at site 98. After another handful or two of gorp and a couple slugs of H20, we set off again. After a while the ridges became indistinguishable. However, somewhere between two of them I finally got what I had been looking for the entire trip.

I had the good fortune of spotting this fellow well before he made it onto the trail. To give you an idea of how fast these bruins are, that slope he just motored up was a little less than 45 degrees. Again, no noise in sprint mode. I can't figure it out. I could hear him when he was foraging down the creek below me, but not when he ran off. This was the biggest one on the entire trip.

As we closed in on site 98 we descended the last hill and a cove from the lake appeared off on the left. Good, the site can't be that much farther ahead. About halfway down the hill I could see the entire cove and I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. Now, you've heard the stories of people that have been stranded in the desert or other harsh conditions and hallucinate, envisioning something or someone that's not really there. Well, we weren't in that type of condition by far, but I reacted the same nonetheless. There it was, floating out in the cove, a pontoon boat! I hustle-imped (that's hustling and limping) down the hill, throwing my pack on the bridge and heading out to the shore of the cove. I'm thinking if we can at least get over to our boats, we can make the trip back to the marina. Fortunately the boat was headed into the cove so they saw me and headed my way. After some negotiating and discussion back and forth, they agreed to take us over to our boats in Hazel Creek.

Moving at 15mph, it took 45 minutes to get from the cove over to our boats. We graciously thanked them for the ride, then pulled the boats down to the water and loaded them up for the trip to the marina. Smith went ahead of me since he had the slower boat. As he was coming to the second bend in the creek a small fishing boat came up the creek, made a wide circle, then headed back to the lake out of sight. Then it came back and stopped. Smith paddled over to them. I figured they were just being friendly. Then I saw him hand his paddle over to them. Is this possible? I picked up my pace and caught up to them. The man in the boat looked at me and said, "How'd you like a ride to the marina?" Hmmmm...let me think about that. 8 miles back to the marina. It's getting dark. We have no lights on either boat. I think we may just have to take him up on that offer.

To top it off, we made it back to the marina, loaded the car, and made it back to the lodge just as they were closing the dining room. They made an exception for us and let us eat. It was so nice to sleep in a bed that night. It was really amazing that we came across the couple with the pontoon boat who happened to drop us off at our boats when this fishing boat was in the creek. The next morning, we headed for Smith's house in Athens, TN via Deal's Gap. Anyone with a knowledge of the area, or a motorcycle for that matter, knows that Deal's Gap is the top of the Tail of the Dragon, an 11 mile stretch of US 129 consisting of 318 turns. Unfortunately, there are no signs in North Carolina that suggest that this section of 129 is impassable by semi.

This semi is not moving forward. He is backing up. I took this picture a little after 9am. According to what we heard, he had been stuck since 1 or 2 in the morning. Fortunately for us, we only had to wait 5-10 minutes for him to get clear for traffic to move through.

This was, by far, one of the most memorable trips of my life. I learned a lot, too. Black bears, at least in this area, are cautious around humans and would rather run away than be curious. No matter how long you let your pocket shower "warm-up" it's still going to be freezing cold when you're standing under it, naked, in 40 degree temp with the wind blowing. Don't mix freeze dried red beans and rice with macaroni and cheese shells. Just don't. I think this trip would have been better if we had allowed more time and traveled less each day. I was concerned about making it back because I had told Jennifer that if she hadn't heard from us by Friday evening she should contact the park ranger's office the next morning. The remaining section of the trip would probably have meant two additional nights out there which would have put us past the cutoff time.

Hmmm.....the only thing left is to start planning the next trip.