During our stay we took a side trip over to Fontana Dam. It was the 4th tallest dam when it was built back in the 40’s. The Fontana Village we stayed at was built to house the dam workers and their families! We took a walk across the top of the dam and can now say that we hiked part of the Appalachian Trail (AT); the trail crosses the Little Tennessee river over the top of the dam.
There were some cool views of the valley and we explored one of the AT shelters, the “Fulton Hilton”. Looked like a nice place for through-hikers to stop and recharge (physically and electronically) after on a long day hiking the trail.
The bulletin board at these pitstops is sometimes the only way hikers get any information about the trail or housing options during their long adventure. There were a couple sleep systems in the bunk area so there were hikers stopped there but we didn’t see them.
