Day 79 - Saturday, May 29, 2021

 Happy Memorial Day Weekend America 🇺🇸 .

Spent the night drying out everything that was soaked from yesterday’s hike. This would be a challenge camping on the trail. Have I mentioned that I just love our “Platinum Slack Packing Thru-Hike”? The rest of the weekend looks dry but a little cool - only in the 60’s which is great hiking weather 😉. I’ve also noticed that our water consumption increases dramatically when the temperatures get above 75°, nearly 3X 🥵.

Today we are continuing hiking SoBo from Stecoach Gap, NC 143 (150.5 NoBo) to US 19 & 74, Nantahala Outdoor Center (136.9 NoBo) equaling 13.6 miles.



We started at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. Begin hiking at 9:30 under cloudy skies and the temperature was 58°.

This potion of the Nantahala River is noted for rafting and kayaking - note the kayak gates behind us in the river.




This is “Poppa Mo” & “Momma Mo”. The Morelli’s are from the Atlanta area and left Springer May 1st. They are giving themselves 6 months to complete their thru-hike... Happy Trails!



The Mountain Laurel blossoms are dropping.


The trail in today’s section was very restricted and narrow due to the dense undergrowth and grasses making hiking more demanding - a little trail maintenance would be welcomed 🥴.


Monument marking where a NC Forest Ranger loss his life fighting a fire December 7, 1968 (Pearl Harbor Day).


Mountain spring.



We encountered a lot of rock today making hiking slow and difficult... “Rocks & roots, they tear you up” (Meredith “Sunny” Eberhart )



Taking a break; the 1st 8 miles was a long ascent where we climbed over 3200 ft. 









Views from the summit of Cheoah Bald.










We finished hiking at 4:30 pm with cloudy skies; temperatures dropped this afternoon into the low 50’s. The next couple days will be cooler as well 👍🏻.

We hit another milestone today, breaking 900 trail miles, 905.1 miles to be exact 🥳. Closing in on the halfway point. We are starting to pick up our daily average miles too which helps chip away at total trail days. Just 2 more miles a day would  decrease our hikes by nearly 20 over the course of the remaining miles.  Staying optimistic and looking forward to the adventures ahead of us 😉!


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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