Your Friends of the Smokies, that is!

I am so excited that Friends of the Smokies Classic Hikes has chosen Fontana Village as the base for their annual overnight trip.

With FOTS, we’ll explore the Fontana Lake area for two days.

Fontana Lake in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is located far from everywhere. You don’t bump into it on your way to anything else.

Sign up for the Friends of the Smokies trip on

Monday August 28 – Tuesday August 29, 2017.

There are still a few rooms left. All the details are here but the highlights include:

Professor Dan Pierce, chair of the history department at UNC-Asheville, who has made the Smokies his life work, wll be our evening speaker.

On Monday evening, he will be speaking about his latest book, Hazel Creek: The Life and Death of an Iconic Community. I’ve known Dan since Fall 2001, when I took my first course on Appalachian history, a few months after I moved here. I’ve been a Dan Pierce fan ever since.

Now for the hikes. Monday afternoon, we’ll hike in the Twenty-mile area, even more remote than Fontana Lake. Look at my blog post on the hike scout.

Tuesday, you have a choice between a long and short hike. Friends and couples coming together can each choose a hike that they would prefer. Both hikes have little elevation gain – the length is the difference.

The long hike is on Hazel Creek Trail to the Hall Cabin. See a blog post on the last time I led a group to the Hall Cabin.

We’ll take the boat across Fontana Lake and hike the Hazel Creek Trail and then onto the Hall Cabin. It’s 15.5 miles round trip, with little ascent, but quite an experience.

The short hike on Lake Shore Trail is just as fascinating. You go past old cars and wonder: where did these cars come from?

Again, you can read about the history of the area in an article I wrote years ago and learn from Dan Pierce’s talk.

We’ll be staying at Fontana Village and not roughing it.

But you have to make reservations with Friends of the Smokies soon.

Sign up and see you on the trail.