Date: 2008-04-11
From: Cold Spring shelter

To: Nantahala Outdoor Center
Miles today: 11.4
Weather: overcast clouds

Ladies, and gentlemen, please keep your hands and feet on the trail at all times... your 11 miles starts... now.Today was a good day of hiking, with beautiful views, some rugged ups, and one killer down. Nothing bad happened with the mice. Gobbles got a mouse poop in one of his pack pockets, but none us got nibbled. I think one scampered across my bag while i was sleeping, so i flicked him off, but i can't figure out if i dreamed it or not. Oh well.. not as bad as it could have been...So we got moving around 7:40 this morning, and we were watching the skies, because they were ominous. The wind was kicking up all morning... the trail was gentle to us at first.... easy and nice. We had a steep decent into Tellico gap, and then a nice 800 foot climb up to Wesser Bald. This one had an observation platform up top, so i climbed up. Outstanding views!!!I only had visibility for a couple of miles, and it was incredible. I wish i could have gotten up there on a perfectly clear day... but anyway, i took some pics, and went back down, and we continued on. We ate a snack at the shelter, and read the journal to catch up with everyone. That's fun, to see where people are. We signed in, and then decided to try to get down to the NOC before the weather hit. We were racing it all day... worried that we would get hit with a downpour. It rained on us some as we started from the shelter, but that was it. The descent was intense. That was a long steep down... pretty, though... it was cool in the sense that we also descended into spring. As we came farther down, the trees had their leaves sprouting out, and there were lots of little white and purple flowers along the trail... and it got warm!We got down here to the NOC around 1:00, and got space in one of the bunk rooms... then we showered, and did our laundry... ahhhhh... clean. So then we went down to the riverside restaurant and ate, then visited the outfitter. After that, we came back and hung out at the room for a little while....Oh yeah, so there was this weird Indian guy hanging out at the bathrooms/laundry talking about horoscopes, and our Chinese astrology, and how certain signs are compatible with others... blar blar blar. He glommed on to clay, snack and snap at first, and then later, he grabbed pod and rhody for a while. He never tried gobbles, me or hokewa. Whew! Anyway, clay, snack and snap got out of here late, but pod and rhody stayed the night here...So, back to the narrative...After hanging here for a few, the guys went down to the bar, and i went down to the river to sketch, and take some pics. I caught up with them at the bar, where we ran into pod and rhody again. We hung out and ate some dinner, and talked... it was cool. Now just journaling to end the day...So my trail name has become "maytag", yes, like the washing machine. Two-cycle didn't work as well....the guys entered it into the shelter journal at Wesser Bald shelter. I need to see if there is another maytag out there... if so, i'll have to find a way to differentiate.So that was the day...tomorrow we head out up the mountain... an 8 mile climb... shooting to hit Fontana Dam in 2 days. Stay tuned....