Kevin's AT Thru Hike

Day 17, Saturday, 4/2 – The lodge had an all you can eat breakfast buffet this morning. I ate enough for the meal to serve as breakfast and lunch.

The lodge has an interesting vibe. There are a lot of people staying at the lodge driving performance cars. There is a road nearby called Tail of the Dragon; apparently people into cars like to drive that road.

I finished my food resupply for the next 6 days. I roughly laid it out from top to bottom as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I’ll only need dinner on night 1 and I won’t need dinner on night 6 through the Smokies.

I was going through all my gear and noticed something had leaked through my pack. It turns out that my water treatment drops had leaked. The constant squeezing of the dropper bottle must have creased a corner and created a pinhole leak. I’m happy I decided to be over prepared and buy a redundant bottle at Mountain Crossings. I’m also happy that the new dropper bottles are cylindrical and not square shaped. Hopefully the new bottles are less prone to leaks.

Willow picked up disc golf as a hobby during the pandemic, and was excited to learn that there is a disc golf course next to the lodge. The lodge let us borrow a bunch of discs and we played a half dozen holes. This was my first time playing, and it was real fun. It’s a sport that costs next to nothing, and gives you a great excuse to spend time with friends in a park. Definitely recommend for anyone who hasn’t played before! I ran into Kyra, Brian, Grizzly, and Julia at the lodge, and Brian joined us for disc golf.

Liz and Ax Hole rented a golf cart for a few hours. We all had a chance to ride around the grounds which was some good fun.