Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Fontana Hiking Week 2008

....Here's the hiking group:::









.We ate at Toodies Restaurant. with the red motorcycle parked out front.................

..............................Here's our cabin with a new red roof.












We led the wild flower hikes in Fontana for many years, and this year we went back to hike with our old friends. Anita and Don Berning were leaders with us, and we had a good time reminiscing about some of our adventures. We got people lost a few times, and we slogged through mud and water on rainy day hikes. We were the "Mountain Goat " leaders and then "Hillbilly"leaders and the now we are"Flat Landers. ". We used to walk to Shuckstack every hiking week. It has a fire tower on top with a beautiful view of the Smokies. The Appalachain trail goes into the Smokies from there. We always took a boat trip to Hazel Creek...an old communtiy that was covered with water when Fontana Dam was built. There's an old lumber mill there where the morel mushrooms grow. We usually found enough morels to cook that night. We would have a program every night after the hike..lectures and music and even square dancing. We had the cafeteria for our meals . The leaders got free cabins and meal tickets and we took lots of friends and families with us to stay in our cabin. We used to have over a hundred people on these hikes...this year we had 29.We had a good time. The place is so isolated in the mountains with a road to get there that is called the "dragon's tail" These days it is full of motorcylces racing around the curves. The cafteria is gone, but our cabin is still there and many of our old friends are still hiking.
draft
7:16:00 AM
by gmaburka

4 comments:

Rose said...

Very nice, looks like you had fun, once again it was a PARTY!

Jerry Span said...

Thanks for coming. I hope to see you both in the Fall.

Stacy Whalen said...

All right! I liked hearing about your hiking memories...
stacy

Tom Cranfield said...

Looks like a fine group of hikers. I am also a Berning, first name is Anita. married name: Anita (Berning) Cranfield, living in Montgomery, born in Dubuque, raised in Berlin, N. D.
Am at www/cranfld@charter.net