After arriving in Fontana and surviving the tragic loss of my camping flip flops, I finally got what every hiker dreams of:
Two complete zero days.
Now, I had slept pretty well the night before, but honestly that didn’t matter because these next two days were no walk in the park.
It was about resting.
Recovering.
Recharge.
And mentally preparing ourselves for the next big challenge:
The smoked ones.
Dun dun dun.
Before returning to Gorgeous Stays, we got our first look at Fontana Dam.
The weather was cloudy, gloomy and looked like the opening scene of a disaster movie.
Normally that would have been disappointing.
Instead, it made me incredibly happy.
Because while the Smokies were sitting there looking mysterious and intimidating, I knew I wasn’t getting close to them yet.
I was going to spend the next two days sitting and doing as little physical work as possible.
A beautiful feeling.
One of our first stops was to return to the NOC.
Mainly because I had a problem.
Remember how I accidentally destroyed my camping flip flops?
Yeah.
That situation needs to be addressed.
So I bought another pair of camping shoes and tried to pretend I was a responsible adult who somehow doesn’t break shoes in the woods.
While I was there, I also bought another donut from Slow Joe’s.
This time I chose the Fruity Pebbles donut.
And let me tell you something.
That thing was phenomenal.
Trail hunger may have slightly influenced my judgment, but I truly think this might have been one of the best donuts I’ve ever eaten.
Back at Gorgeous Stays, I decided the time had finally come.
It’s time to completely empty my backpack.
And what an experience it turned out to be.
I discovered enough random wrappers, receipts, empty drink packets, and mysterious debris to start my own landfill.
After checking everything, I realized that I was carrying almost half a kilo of garbage.
A whole pound.
For who knows how long.
No wonder my backpack felt heavy.
Apparently one of my backpacking skills is turning my backpack into a mobile trash can.
Another unfortunate discovery:
My legs are getting incredibly strong.
My arms?
Not so much.
Narwhale quickly identified this problem and decided it was time for me to suffer.
He pulled out his workout setup and had me do several arm exercises.
Now, there’s something objectively fun about doing strength training while wearing clothes borrowed from random hikers.
Especially after spending weeks walking through the woods looking like a wild raccoon.
It was fun, I can’t lie.
It didn’t seem like an arduous task.
It felt good to move in a completely different way than hiking.
Although I can confidently report that my arms were not thrilled with the experience.
At some point during downtime, Narwhale showed Dread Pirate and me a stand-up comedy sketch about a George Foreman Grill.
If you’ve seen it, you already know it.
If you haven’t, go check it out.
Immediately.
For some reason, this became the funniest thing we’ve ever heard.
Soon, everything that was in the way was somehow related to putting things at an angle.
A shelter?
At an angle.
A campsite?
At an angle.
A mountain?
Definitely at an angle.
The joke doesn’t make any sense to anyone around us.
And honestly, I’m not even sure it makes sense to us anymore.
But we have fully committed.
We’ve even started introducing it to other hikers so they can join our weird little cult of angle enthusiasts.
The humor of the trail is strange.
After enough miles, dehydration, and lack of sleep, almost anything turns into comedy gold.
It’s easy to think that the Appalachian Trail is all about hiking.
The mountain views.
The miles.
The great achievements.
And of course, those things are incredible.
But these two days reminded me how important rest is too.
Not just physically.
Mentally.
Emotionally.
Socially.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is absolutely nothing.
Sleep late.
Eat good food.
Laugh with friends.
Clean your equipment.
Read a book.
Watch the rain from a warm place instead of walking through it.
Because in the end the path will be there again waiting for you.
And in our case, that trail led directly to the Great Smoky Mountains.
Then we rest.
We laugh.
We recover.
And before long, we would return to the forest to face our biggest challenge yet.
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