| Mile | 137 |
| Miles Since Last Update | 16.5 |
| Day | 15 |
No stars last night. Moon was too full. Not a great omen but I don’t really get to change any plans based on astrology yet.
Woke up at 530. Made a shit ton of noise I’m sure. Got on trail by 6. Needed to head lamp for a bit but the first section was very smooth.
Stopped at cold springs shelter at around 9 to try to lighten my pack by stuffing my face full of food for a few minutes. Read thru the log book in hopes of finding traces of Elf. No such luck. If you are out there Elf, we miss you. We miss your solar panel and your signature dish of unseasoned rice and almonds. Please come home.
Climb to Wesser bald was rough and the heat was starting to pick up so I was slowing down. Notyet caught me about here, halfway thru the 16 miles. There’s a watch tower at the bald but I didn’t care to climb it, today was about going down, not up.
It felt like hundreds of people had warned me about “the descent into the NOC”. Roughly 2000 ft down over 2 miles and supposedly some super scary rocks and knife edges. It was fine mostly. The hardest part was the heat and the bugs and having already been hiking for almost 9 hours straight.
Notyet, Bladerunner and I met up at the NOC and printed our smokies permits and got food. The NOC is primarily a rafting center so this time of year it is kind of dead, but I am enjoying the luxury of a private room/shower and trying my best to stay up late enough to finish this pizza so I don’t have to try to pack it out to the trail tomorrow.
Writing some more notes, fixing some bugs in the Garmin scraper, trying to find shit to throw out of my pack (I 100% am developing the Reese Witherspoon shoulder bruises now) tonight. Sleep in tomorrow. Then 7 miles to Sassafras gap which should be a breeze.
A lot of people blog their trip on a website called the trek and it has been real interesting to see people I recognize getting recommended to me and how they interpret their journeys.
Example: https://thetrek.co/appalachian-trail/the-beginning-of-the-adventure/
I’ve run into this guy 6 or 7 times. He’s a fine person. He’s hiking with another guy and a dog. They are wonderful as well. First time I met them at a camp tho the dog freaked out at my tarp I guess and tore out a bunch of my stakes. No one’s fault for sure but just not something that ends up in a trek blog post, yet is something I remember very vividly.
Dumb tower at Wesser bald. They give any bald a tower now I guess
This specific turn in the descent has been described to me with such extreme horror
The NOC