AT Adventures: Day 12, 6-26

This was another rainy day. Luckily, the AM was pretty dry, so we were able to mostly dry out before it started sprinkling again. Its always nice to have a little dry spell before getting damp again. So we left our very new shelter, and had about...maybe 17 miles to get to the NOC and Wesser. (NOC = Nantahala Outdoor Company). We were doing well, and then Caleb's shin started acting up on him. This was worrying for both of us, neither of us wanted to leave...once again, that thought had to cross our minds, and it isn't one of the most pleasant thoughts ever, that's for sure. Since it hadn't been that long since Franklin, we figured that we would take an extra day or so to get to this point. When we set out, as I mentioned, it was pretty dry. This was a day that both C and I noticed a phenomenon that we had never witnessed and had pertain to us. Usually we get a nice background chatter of stuff, bugs, birds, and random other noises of the forest. It was doing that rather nicely, then all of a sudden, it got really quiet. We look up, and the clouds are looking grim. Very grim. We don't get our stuff on yet, I don't think, but start hauling. We cover some serious ground in a ridiculous amount of time...we were at least pushing 3, dare I say 3.5 mph? On foot, with a pack, that's doing really well. We didn't make it out of the woods though, and it ended up raining on us. Sigh. Oh well. We hit a shelter, it had two people there that we talked to for a while. Caleb was hurting fairly consistently, so we were toying the idea of calling it a day, even though it had been a really light day. The people were day-hikerish, and didn't seem thrilled at the idea of us sticking around. Anyway, a few minutes later, a SOBO (SOuth BOund) hiker comes trucking through. She's named April, and she was hilarious. I think we stayed there for 15-20 minutes, and the only word we got in edgewise was 'mole'. She was super excited about everything, and it was really fascinating to watch. Anyway, she encouraged our continuation into the NOC, or at least the shelter very close to the NOC. We decided to go on a little farther and see how Caleb's shin felt. Started out, and he said it felt good, so we began our long descent into the valley. It was long. We just kept going down and down and down...I think it lasted, all told, about 6 miles. There was a shelter maybe...a mile? a little less? from the NOC that we were aiming for, and we showed up in decent time. I hate going down, but it wasn't too bad. Set up far from the shelter, because the shelter was pretty old and gross seeming. We ate there, I asked C about his shin, then we retired to our hammocks. There was a guy that had come through while we were in the midst of dinner, he mentioned to us that the hemlocks were all being eaten by the Woolly Blight. It's a bug that'll get them eventually, but doesn't start munching on them until after they're about 9-10 years old. Its sad. They're wonderful trees.