All through the night, as “Cutt,” Bo and I slept in the shelter, the mice in the rafters scurried all around. Early in the morning, one fell from the ceiling onto the floor and scampered off, startling all of us.

I said goodbye to “Cutt” this morning as I was continuing NOBO, and he was headed back SOBO to the NOC to finish up his month-long hike. Bo and I had only 7 miles to go to the shelter with a small climb and then 3 miles of downhill. I was starting to lose patience with Bowen today as we were going downhill because he kept pushing up against the back of my legs, trying to get in front. I had my first big fall today. We were ascending some wet rocks, and my foot slipped out from under me, causing me to fall face first towards the rocks. Luckily, my elbows took most of the blow.

There was fog on only half of the ridge during our climb, which was neat to see. Bo and I walked down to the Marina and then one more mile to the shelter. During that mile, the trail took us around the edge to where we could see the lake down to our right. Once at the shelter, it was difficult to organize getting into town to get food and to get my resupply box. Fontana advertised running a free shuttle service at 9am, 12pm, and 4pm, but people said they’ve been waiting for the shuttle since 8am, and it never showed up. It took lots of phone calls, but eventually, I found a shuttle, and we got into town. No one could find my box that was dropped off, and eventually, I found it at the post office and then got some ice cream. The ice cream lady even brought Bo a bowl of vanilla ice cream!

Fontana had no resupply to offer, other than some tuna packets and snacks, so many people were sorry out of luck. Apparently, the owner changed and hikers used to resupply at the Marina that was pretty well stocked, but the new owner rerouted hikers to the resort in hopes of getting them to eat at the restaurant to bring more money to the resort. However, that reroute has backfired, and instead, hikers try to blow by Fontana instead. It was definitely frustrating to have the town claim to offer all these amenities to hikers and for them to fall short.

While in town I was trying to get cash to pay the person who was going to watch and shuttle Bo around the Smokies, but the resort doesn’t do cash back and their atm required a physical card so I was out of luck. However, “Mule” spotted me a bit of cash so I could pay the dog lady, and then the group of us went over to the restaurant for lunch. I got a pizza and beer and had plenty of pizza left over for dinner tonight, as well as breakfast and lunch for tomorrow!

The dog lady came to the shelter around 6 pm, and I said goodbye to Bo- I would see him sometime next week. On the way back down to the shelter, there was trail magic! Some past thru-hikers grilled hotdogs and had drinks for us. They said they remembered Fontana having a terrible resupply, so they wanted to help out. They plan to make a big breakfast for hikers in the morning back at the Marina. It would be backtracking a mile to go to the breakfast, so I decided against it.

The Fontana Hilton was packed tonight. Everyone was talking pretty loud, and I got overstimulated since that was the most people I had been around in weeks. There were hundreds of carpenter bees flying all around the shelter, and as Bo and I were waiting for the dog lady, he kept jumping up in the air and catching them in his mouth. I didn’t feel like hanging my bear bag so I just put my food bags in the trashcan outside the shelter and I wasn’t worried about mice because apparently there’s a large black snake living underneath the shelter.

Day: 21

Date: 4/25/2025

Miles: 7.09

Camp: Fontana Hilton Shelter

At Mile: 166.2