Day 23: 4/25/16

So we thought we’d be in the Smokies for at least two more nights age after Gatlinburg… but as it turns out, last night was the final night in the park. We rocked out an 18.4 mile day, albeit mostly downhill, but a long day nonetheless.

We caught a little bit of wildlife this morning, a white tail deer came walking just past the bear cables at the shelter this morning. Other than that, no other wildlife. It’s a little disappointing that we didn’t get to see any bears in the Smokies… a few of our fellow thru-hikers did. We even chatted with a couple of ridge-runners who warned us of more active bears in the northern part of the smokies. And at Cosby Knob shelter, where we ate our first lunch today, there were signs all over the place warning of bears. And the Davenport Gap shelter even had a cushion chain link fence covering the opening to keep bears out. But alas… no bears were sighted by us in the smokies.

Originally, we were going to stop at Davenport Gap shelter for the night, but it was still pretty early in the day when we arrived there… about 2pm. Since it was only about an additional 3 miles or so, we decided to push on to Standing Bear farm.

After crossing Pigeon River, and underneath I-40, we only had about another mile of mostly uphill, sunny, hot, trail to go. When we finally arrived at Standing Bear, we walked around to the back of the “office” and we were greeted by Lumpy, who was relaxing by his fire. He gave us the quick rundown of the place, and then we were free to claim our bunks, and just relax.

This place is… eclectic. It’s definitely here to cater to thru-hikers, and really no one else. The bunk room is pretty much a little barn with 14 beds in it. Surprisingly they do offer sheets and pillows. The restrooms are a few port-o-lets out in the drive way, yet they do have a shower for hikers to use. There’s a little resupply… shed, but it’s pretty well stocked, with reasonable prices, and cold drinks. They work off an honor system. You grab an envelope and just keep track of what you take and the price. Then when we leave in the morning, they’ll just add it up and we can pay with cash or card. They have laundry facilities, which consist of a wash board and rollers (which you should NOT feed zippers through). Yet, there’s also an electric dryer. The communal kitchen area has a sink with hot and cold running water, a three burner propane “stove”, a microwave and mini-fridge, and a pizza oven.

This has got to be one of the most unique places we’ve ever stayed. The place is up a steep Gravel road, and theres really nothing else around it. I’m glad we decided to stop here for the night to experience it.

We’ll be getting a bit of a later start tomorrow. We only need to go about 10 miles. At the pace we’re going, we’ll be in Hot Springs by Thursday. After that, we’re taking about a week off in Asheville. Casey has an appointment, so I’m going to stay in Asheville with an old buddy of mine. I’m looking forward to visiting the many breweries there.