Showers, Laundry and Lunch at NOC

Today we woke up to more clear, blue skies, and nice cool breezes. Everyone was excited about hiking the 6 miles into the Nantahala Outdoor Center, where the promise of hot showers and large cheeseburgers and fries lured us like bees to honey. We beat it down the hill as fast as possible, found the showers and laundry, got clean and shiny, and then as soon as the laundry hit the dryer, we headed to the River's End Restaurant and had a Wesser Original, which is basically a very large bacon cheese burger and tots. We passed on the Hungry Hiker, which had two half-pound patties! Yikes!

We picked up our second resupply box of the trip (thanks Sean and Bart!), refilled our food bags, repacked all of the clean clothes, and left town full, clean, and rested.

The climb out of NOC was seriously challenging, and we really only planned to do 2 miles, but kept looking for a better site, and ended up camping on a nice level spot on a ridge with Lime Green, Beowolf, and Kitten.

I did not explain, but the NOC is a kayaking and rafting hot spot. I took a few pictures on the river while we were there. Also, we descended so much today that we actually got into spring, with actual flowers and leaves on trees. However, by the end of the day we had climbed back up into the bare forest, except for rhododendron thickets here and there.






























(Camped just .3 miles north of the Jump Ups, mile 142)
- Steady and F100

Location:Mile 142