Day 81 - Monday, May 31, 2021

🇺🇸  Happy Memorial Day  🇺🇸 

We are wrapping up another session of hiking as we have been hitting the trail hard since May 5th with only one “Zero”. We are going off trail for a few days so that we can take care of some personal business (Jean & I are closing on our Condo). We’ve gone over 900 trail miles and we are knocking on Springer’s door. Turtle Power and I have checked and fine tuned our schedule and we will accomplish reaching the southern terminus on June 13th!

Today we are continuing hiking from      
Burningtown Gap, NC 01397 (124.0 NoBo) to Wayah Crest Picnic Area (115.2 NoBo) equaling 8.8 miles. Not quite a “Nero” but I have to catch my flight in Atlanta 2+ hours away so I have to be off the trail by 3ish.

We started hiking at at 9:30  am.




There has been a lot of day hikers and section hikers on the trail this weekend. We don’t expect to see anymore NoBo thru-hikers as it’s getting late in the year for them to be this far south and still make it though New Hampshire and to Katahdin safely. I’m not sure what sections they are off hand but there are sections in Maine that close October 15th due to the high probability of inclement weather. 

Many of the hikers we have spoken with like how we are doing the “Platinum Slack Pack Flip-Flop-Flip Thru Hike” 😉. They especially enjoy how I am accompanying my father 😂... you’re a good son Splinter  😉.

We met a couple section hiking today from Spencer, NY which is by Ithaca. 




Wayah Bald Stone Tower.





Panoramic view from Wayah Bald.









Views from Wayah Bald.



A Gnome home... you find them
where you least expect to.


We finished hiking at 1:45 pm under clear sunny skies; the temperature was 63°. Done in plenty of time for me to go to Atlanta to catch my flight. We will be back on the trail Saturday, June 5th. 


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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