Day 13, 6-27

Caleb would kill me if I left this story out, and I kinda get a kick out of it as well, so here goes. Even though it is a touch embarrassing for me. So we woke up and trucked the little bit into the NOC. It was only about an hour out from the shelter, but we didn't feel like staying in the Hostel there, and didn't really appreciate how scrumptious their breakfast buffet was. If we had, we would have taken full advantage of it, and embarrassed ourselves. As it was, we had already gone through a significant amount of the granola that mom had sent us at Franklin (we ate so much...), so we needed a breakfast or two. We expected some sort of grocery, but there was nothing. So we wandered to the outfitters for more H2O, and some sort of resupply. We wanted water first, which is where this story takes off. Alright, so we walk in, reeking, hairy, and with our packs. We grew very attached to our packs, and even though everyone is looking at us surreptitiously, we aren't going to take them off. Its our life in those things. Anyway, we ask for water, they point us towards the bike shop and a sink there. •As we’re filling up, we start talking to the two other bike shop employees that are bumming about. One happens to be, in my estimation, a very attractive young lady. It had been a while since I’d had the opportunity to talk to any attractive young ladies, so I seize the day, as it were. I'm doing my best to be charming and all that, and she mentions that she had done some outdoor climbing recently. I ask where, she says, ‘The Ice Cream Parlor’ (climbs outdoors have very odd names on them), and I respond, ‘Oh yeah, that’s awesome.’ We converse a little more, then Caleb and I set off again. As we’re trekking out, Caleb asks me, ‘Greg, what’s the ice cream parlor?’ To which I respond: “I have no idea. I just wanted her to keep talking.” To which Caleb said, ‘Greg, you’re pretty hopeless.’ To which I agreed.
The resupply was odd...we just needed breakfast and munchies, so we both set our hearts on copious amounts of energy bars. So we each picked up about $30 of bars to tide us over. We glanced at the Ben and Jerry's but decided against it, and went with splitting a king sized snickers instead. We ate that, then I went in and bought another candy bar to split. We ate that. And then Caleb walked in to buy another candy bar, which we also split. In retrospect, we should have just picked up a pint and split it...even though it was like, 9-10 in the AM.
Anyway, we set out and encountered what I consider one of the hardest climbs of the trip. The Jump Up. It was from the Nantahala River to...way high up there. It was 6 miles of steady climbing. I consider it the hardest climb that C and I did, both in terms of brutal climbing and the fact that we did it all in pretty much one huge push (maybe a minor break here or there, but mostly just gutting it out). We flailed our way up and made it to this shelter and kinda collapsed. There were some boy scouts there, but they were actually cool (a rarity, boy scouts generally are annoying and know little to nothing of backpacking. I know you've got to learn somehow, and thats cool, but a lot of them have gone on a lot of trips, and still know nothing...its sad...). We talked with them for a bit, then the heavens opened up. Both C and I were glad we were at a shelter, and decided to eat lunch. Hey, it was 6 brutal miles from our candy bars...they were long gone.
I have an edit to make at this point...the April person I said we had met? We didn't bump into her until the 28th. We did meet this dude named Rocker today, who left neat trail log entries with rock lyrics (mostly classic stuff, great!) , and he had hiked with her for a bit, but he was rolling pretty fast, and she wasn't, so he was hiking on. Anyway, she's tomorrow. Not the day before. Whoops...
Btw, in answer to Toms question (I don't think I answered it last post): we did have a digital camera. I picked up a huge memory card (2 gig), and some batteries the day before, and carried an extra pair of batters with me. They managed to last pretty well, but we'd turn it on, take a picture, and then turn it off again immediately. Which is also what I did with my phone...turn on, call M and D, and then shut it down as soon as possible after the fact. It worked out, and the batteries lasted until the last week, when I finally had to change them.

A plaque to a firefighter that died fighting a forest blaze near there. We thanked him for his sacrifice to the forest and the AT.











My ringwraith picture.













This is us, after we finished the Jump up. We were tired. It was hard.












A gorgeous view of something cool. Not sure where this is...












This turtle was sitting in the middle of the path like, 'What? You wanna get by? I don't care! I'm taking over this path, and you got nothing to say about it! Bring it, I'll take you out!' So we took a picture of him, and it flattered him so much he didn't kill us when we stepped over him...