Day 68 - Tuesday, May 18, 2021

We stayed at Uncle Johnny’s Nolichucky Cabins & Hostel last night. Your typical hiker hostel. One young hiker actually asked me how the washing machine works? Does that mean this is the first time he’s done laundry on the trail, ever ? 🙄 😬

It got warm in our little 8’X10’ cabin but I was on the top bunk too. Turtle Power is afraid of heights and  besides he still wets the bed so it was obvious that he took the lower bunk 😂.  The trail goes right through the property so that makes things convenient as our hike today is right from this location. 👍🏻

Today we are hiking from Indian Grave Gap, TN 395 (352.6 NoBo) to Uncle Johnny’s Cabin’s, River Road, Unaka Springs Road, Erwin, TN (344.2 NoBo) for a total of 8.4 miles. We are doing a long “Nero” 😉. 

We began hiking at 8:15 am and it was already 65°.






This is our little home away from home.... I asked Turtle Power to clean up his things before he took the pic... but he didn’t. You probably noticed that he didn’t make his bed neither 🙄. I think it needed “airing out” 😂.






Today’s hike was 95% uphill as we climbed over 2000 feet in elevation.





More and more mountain flowers bloom every day. Peak season is still 2 weeks away. Today is also the warmest day we have had to date as it reached 73°. I think Spring may be finally here. 




The Curley Maple Gap Shelter. I received some “Trail Magic” today as some hiker left their bear canister at the shelter. It’s not unusual for hikers to leave extra or unwanted equipment at the shelters for others to take and use. I’ll leave it for the next hiker when I’m done using it. 



Jesus hasn’t refilled the “Trail Magic” jar yet this week. He must have gotten delayed at Damascus Trail Days 😉.


I wasn’t aware it was required to have a USFS number to bury a dog on the trail 🤔.




We met there two thru-hikers at Indian Gap. The first hiker is “Prophet” who started from Springer April 1st. I think he needs to start getting some trail miles in or he better be very experienced at winter survival. 

The second hiker is “Jestus” who is from Illinois. He also is backpacking a ukulele and enjoys playing it around the campfire for all the hikers delight. I gave them both a cold bottle of water from our cooler.

We finished hiking at 12:30 pm.


Till next time.... Happy Hiking  🥾 

😋


“You gotta have passion for life and passion for something that you're going to get up and do,".    

                                Meredith “Sunny” Eberhart  


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