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WATERSKI MagazineWe were told at least three times not to bother with Fontana Lake. When we met Bill Mckee and a few pensive members from the Great Smoky Mountains Ski Club at the Almond Boat and RV Park on Fontana, all was quiet except for a few geese milling around. It seemed odd, because this is considered one of the two best launches on the entire lake.
“If it was easy to get to,” said McKee, still apprehensive, “you'd see a lot more people out here.”
Its true highway 129, which looks to be the straightest shot across the dusty trail into the Fontana region in western most North Carolina, is actually a paved doodle where motorcyclists come from around the country to test the boundaries of death … literally.
On this morning we were the crowd. As we motored around islands created by the water being down 70 feet, minor ripples sneaked across the open water and disappeared along the curvy banks that looked like giant cleavage. “I think this is it,” said Garrett Begley, as he guided the Moomba Outback into a long alley. It might have been Hazel Creek; it might not have been. All that mattered was at mid-day, with a breeze sweeping the tops of the mountains, the water was still hushed. The same group that talked badly behind Fontana's back a day earlier were now wrestling to see who would be first to ski across its face.
It was 8 p.m. when we pulled back into a slip at Almond, 14 hours after we'd reluctantly started out the conversation has turned to the next rendezvous on Fontana.
“I wasn't so sure about this when you first asked us to come here,” said McKee,”but boy, I'm sure glad we came.”
