Appalachian Trail 2020, Days 18-19: Standing Bear Hostel to TriCorner Knob Shelter (SOBO)

Flight schedules and shelter reservations don't always cooperate with a northbound plan, so this section through the Great Smoky Mountains got hiked southbound instead - starting with a hostel pizza and ending with a cold night at TriCorner Knob. Watch the video below, then read on for the full story.

Why We Went South This Time

Planning this section meant wrestling with a puzzle: the Smokies require reservations for specific shelters if you're not a thru-hiker, and some of the shelters we needed were already booked. Between those reservations and our flight schedule out of Asheville, hiking south instead of north turned out to be the only combination that actually worked. So south we went.

Pizza at Standing Bear Farm

We flew into Asheville, Ubered about ten minutes to the REI store, and right around 3:30pm our shuttle driver from Standing Bear Hostel picked us up. We'd planned to eat dinner there, so we grabbed a frozen pizza, cooked it up quick, and ate before getting back on trail that same evening. It's a fast turnaround, but it meant we could squeeze in four miles before dark and get a jump on the section.

A Short First Night at Davenport Gap

With an afternoon start, we kept night one short - four miles to Davenport Gap Shelter. It's a caged-in, double-decker shelter you can lock up, with a fire ring and a water source close by. October had brought decent rain to the area, so the pipe down at the water source had a good flow, even if it wasn't the most reliable gauge of normal conditions. Being from Florida, camping in the mid-30s that first night was a wake-up call about just how cold the Smokies get in the fall.

Climbing Into the Smokies

Since we weren't thru-hiking, we skipped the permit box on the way into Great Smoky Mountains National Park and kept climbing. Day two called for about 14.6 miles to TriCorner Knob Shelter, with three and a half to four miles of climbing right out of the gate before the trail settled into smaller ups and downs. Water sources looked good every three or four miles along the way, which made the elevation gain a little easier to manage.

The Elevation Gain Adds Up

All told, this section packed in about 4,900 feet of elevation gain - the kind of number that looks fine on paper until you're the one climbing it with a full pack. Between the two nights, the cold, and the steady climbing, this stretch from Standing Bear to TriCorner Knob was a solid reminder that the Smokies punch above their weight for a "short" section hike.