Day 16

Weather:
Sunny, no rain.

Today's Hike:
Wayah Shelter to Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) - 16.3 miles

Today was a tough one. The original plan was to hike to Wesser Shelter, 10.6 miles North of our starting point. After hiking for about 2 hours we reached Buringtown Gap where there was a sign indicating that there was a trail angel ahead in an orange dome. We rounded the corner and there was this massive Mountain Hardwear dome tent with a big sign across the outside that read "AT Trail Angel". Inside was a trail angel named Apple (who worked for IBM - LOL) who was serving hot coffee, hot chocolate, cookies, and fresh fruit. Yum! One cup of coffee/hot chocolate, three dozen cookies, and one apple later Cindi transformed into the energizer bunny (a first since the start of the hike), and we were both ready to make the 750 ft. climb to Cold Mountain Shelter.

From Cold Mountain Shelter shelter we made our way to Wesser Shelter, arriving there at 3pm. After taking a 30 minute break, the Tag Team showed up and made a call to NOC to find out if rooms were available and to also find out what the latest check-in time was. After finding out that rooms were available and we could check in at anytime we made reservations & the four of us (Tag Team, Cindi, & myself) began our 3,000 ft. decent over 5.7 miles. It was tough, especially on the knees. Cindi & the Tag Team kept a similar pace, and I started falling behind around mile 14.5.

As I was walking down the mountain I was thinking that it would be really nice if the restaurant at NOC had a veggie burger and ice cold beer. I reached NOC about 30 minutes behind everyone else and Cindi ran out of restuarant and yelled across the way that my vegan burger just came out and there was an ice cold beer waiting for me. Heaven. Meanwhile the rest of the crew had downed their first beer and were already half-way through their dinner. Time for me to catch up.

Over dinner The Tag Team & Cindi gave me my trail name: Katch-up. Katch-up because 1) I had used about a half a bottle of ketchup with my dinner, and 2) I'm usually somewhere behind Cindi catching up to her throughout the day. Now it was time to finalize Cindi's Trail Name.