It rained much of the night but we woke to clouds and fog. We hit the trail early and missed quite a few views due to the fog. It actually didn’t rain at all the whole day, so we are pretty thankful. We found some nice views on Cowrock Mountain, then crossed into Neels Gap. There is a gear store right in the gap, and the trail actually goes through the building. For Northbounders, it is famous for helping them fix whatever gear issues they have, usually lightening their packs considerably. We didn’t need anything but we did have some sodas and grab some snacks for the end. We also got a free I’ve cream bar for being SoBos.

We went outside to eat lunch and Brown and the Highwaymen were walking up the road. They had spent the night in town and gotten a late start. We ate our snacks and lunch quickly, then got hiking with them, catching up on what each other had been up to. We hiked 16 more miles with them, over Blood Mountain, in the clouds. We’d heard about it forever as a really hard climb… But we crushed it because we are in great shape!

One more day.

We are all in the shelter talking about finishing the trail.

In honour of the continued crappy weather, here are some videos. First, two from our wet walk into Damascus: https://youtu.be/DApVfu0ItA0 and https://youtu.be/TX_DIiEBIfs

Then, how we hope our hike will end, with a beautiful day like we had at Beauty Spot Gap: https://youtu.be/scFlgkAvpFw

Today we were up at dawn in the rain, hiking two hours to Hiawassee, GA for our final resupply. Apparently we missed Brown and the Highwaymen by an hour, but we are staying the night here, so really we are still a day behind…  We are charging our devices, drying out wet things and preparing for the final push to the end!

We woke up early because it’s a town day! Since the weather continues to be crap, we had to hike with headlamps for a bit even though technically the sun was “up”. We descended for a couple hours down into Nantahala Outdoors Center (NOC), with a brief view between two levels of clouds. When we hit NOC, it was a total zoo, as this weekend is their busiest of the year. Guest Appreciation Festival has a big swap meet, plus their outdoor store has a massive sale, PLUS all their rental gear for the year goes on sale (kayaks, bikes, etc, etc). There were also food vendors and live music. Thousands of people.

We got through it all and found the breakfast joint (and the Highwaymen) and ate a leisurely breakfast. Then laundry and very expensive/bad resupply. Then we walked across the whole NOC complex for a coin operated shower. We had another meal (and a beer) before finally making it out of the vortex by mid-afternoon.

We climbed straight back up into the mountains, and eventually, the clouds. We climbed a fire tower right below the cloud line, so had a good view from there. We passed what would have been some nice views that were socked in. We hit a shelter and for the first time in a long while, we are by ourselves. The Highwaymen have pushed on to start trying to catch Brown, so we will likely see them at the end of the trail.
DBB
High Wire Brewing:
Lazy Hiker Smoky Porter (Bearcat)
Lager (Monk)

Cowboy camping was, unfortunately, a complete disaster. We got nommed on by no-see-ums and some mosquitos, and Ryley asked if we could either try to set up the tent or go in the shelter. I said “no, we’re having an adventure!”. 10 minutes later it started to rain. So! We moved into the upper bunk of the Fontana Hilton shelter and had a dry sleep while it rained all night.

We were woken up to the sound of a rodent gnawing insistently on (I think) the shelter itself…kind of hard to sleep through. It was very wet out so we stayed in our warm sleeping bags for a bit and listened to the raindrops on the roof. We convinced ourselves to get on the trial by 8 but we didn’t make it very far – q mile down the trail was a marina and we decided to see if they might sells coffee (wishful thinking…). The guy running the store (Tim) said no, but he had a pot made and we were welcome to help ourselves. Hurray! We sat in the marina store chatting with Tim, drinking coffee, eating a warmed up plastic wrapped Danish (I’m not sure I ever would have thought I’d call one of those things “good”…but I am now) and watching it intermittently pour outside.

Great view from the top!

We moved on around 9 and had a big climb up from Fontana Lake, then lots of up and downs. It was a soggy day walking through the clouds and getting rained on off and on. We stopped at a shelter with the Highwaymen for a late lunch. We had another big climb to end our day up to Cheaua Bald – another spot we’d been told to camp on for a beautiful sunset and sunrise – but it was completely socked in and we’d gotten poured on again after lunch. So we carried on another mile to Sassafras shelter where we got into dry clothes, made a hot dinner, then crawled into bed 🙂 Another 5000ft or so climbing day, 23 miles.

Today we are officially in North Carolina. For the last week we’ve been riding the border between NC and TN, but now we’re fully into NC.

We got up pre-dawn and headed out as soon as we could see, around 7. We climbed up Rocky Top and although we missed the sunrise, it still had cool views. Then we started down, hitting a couple shelters, stopping at one for lunch.

After lunch, more down, and we stopped at an amazing fire tower. It was really tall and we could see back to Clingmans Dome, and the whole ridge we had followed since. We saw a couple bears after that, then finally down to Fontana Dam. We walked across the very large dam, then went into the visitors center to do a mini resupply to get us to NOC, our next real resupply. We hung out there for awhile before heading out again, a short hike to the Fontana Hilton, a very nice shelter with a view over the reservoir for the Dam. (mk: It also had real washrooms with a men’s and women’s side, each had a shower with hot water – swanky! I took advantage but Ryley decided to stay a stink-butt.)

We also got some phone service and sent Brown some texts. It seems he’s sped up as we’ve slowed down, so he’s now a full day ahead of us. Ah well, we will probably try to catch up with him right on the last day of our hike (which is now fast approaching!)

Mk: we got to see a nice sunset over the reservoir then decided to cowboy camp out – which I’ve never done before!