There is a trail in there somewhere!!
After the Clearing process
It was a cold, cold morning, again. I slept amazingly well; however. I think I’m getting the hang of this hammock; no pun intended. We got packed up, got water and took off. We shouldn’t get water in the morning. It takes too damn long
Trailfox was ahead of us and we didn't know it. She must have left at like 5:30 AM. We got a kind of late start due to the water gathering, but we were cruising along at a good clip for us. Footing was very slippery and we finally caught up with all of the people who had left the shelter before us. At some point, me and Cubit took off. She's a pretty fast hiker and I was huffin' and puffin' before long. I kept asking her to slow down. She has these ridiculous hiker legs and her pack is something like 25 pounds. For a short girl, she somehow steps it out and moves very fast.
The wind and rain over the past few days had been pretty crazy and there were blow-downs everywhere. A “Blow-Down” is when heavy rains loosen the soil and the combination of loose soil and heavy winds sends a tree crashing to the ground, lifting out its entire root structure including the boulders that the roots have grown around over the years. It’s a marvel to see and frightening to hear in the middle of the night. It sounds like a train wreck with explosions as one big tree dominoes the smaller ones it hits on the way down. You'd be hiking long and suddenly an entire tree was laying along the trail, impassable. You'd have to bushwhack it up crazy steep slopes to get around it, while slippin and falling and sliding back down through leaves and bugs and mud and snakes and stuff. Then you'd be alright for a while. There would be small blow-downs you could step over, and then you'd be huffin up a big hill and SLAM! You run into a monster blow-down.
Cyclone and Rolex, we found out later, spent a half an hour clearing the first one that me and Cubit just scrambled through. They cut it up and peeled it off and threw it down the slope. They have "before and after" pictures but Rolex left the Sony cable adapter to his camera up at his school and we can't get any pictures off of the camera until we get a hold of one of those.
Somehow, Cubit and I caught up with Trailfox . We got into a killer pace and totally missed the shelter we were all going to meet at. We hiked all the way down to the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) which is this pretty cool rafting center on the Chattooga River with an outfitter, convenience store, lodging, restaurant, etc.. It’s right on the trail. Normally that would have been cool; however, I knew we'd have to walk back up the 300 feet in elevation to the shelter, so we ate dinner and picked up some marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers and brought them back up with us for the fire we had texted them to make. For dinner, Cubit and I had pizza at the NOC but it sucked. I should have known it would
After we got back up the hill, having to climb back over a few blow-downs that we had already negotiated, I decided to sleep in the shelter so I wouldn't have to set up my tent. I stayed up late watching over the fire and trying to play this E minor blues progression that was in my head for a few hours before retiring to the shelter which was packed with five other people: Cubit, Just Lyle, MadMtMike and Longtoe. I was in between Mike and Longtoe which will be pertinent to tomorrow's post.
David AKA "Jukebox"
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