Day 16-3/26-Fontana Dam to Spence Field Shelter-17.9 miles

The hike out of Fontana was long, starting at 1700' elevation and climbing all the way to 4800'. Initially you walk across the dam itself and then follow the road to reach the woods again. I felt pretty strong and did the entire climb without much of a break. There was a firetower about 6 miles in that I skipped, as it was not directly on the trail. I heard from others later that it was in disrepair and those that had climbed it were scared it would fall at any time. This is the day when you hit the TN/NC border. The trail will follow that border for quite sometime, with views to your left in TN and views to your right in NC. Coming off the zero day I decided to skip a couple of the shelters and push to Spence Field Shelter, making for a long day. I still reached the shelter with plenty of daylight, and met a couple section hikers. One was a teacher from Chicago. He said his students could not understand why he would spend his spring break in the woods.