D21 & 22

Day 21 - Packages

• Miles traveled: 0 (Zero day)
• Shelter: another great night in hobo village at the NOC
• High point: tie for packages and food
• Low point: the foreboading climb out tomorrow morning

We arrived into the NOC a day earlier than we expected. Towns or stops do that to you. They give you a little bit of drive or push you to just get there. Anyways we were expecting a package to be delivered at anytime on Wednesday so we decided we would stay for a zero.

We did our normal "zero" chores: laundry before shower and eat before purchasing resupply food for the next few days. All of these task are very important as is their order of operations. (FYI: this seems to be only important to me. Russ doesn't care in what order we do things and would probably do them all at once if he could.)

We cleaned and we ate!


We received packages too!!!

We received a box full of goodies from my friend April M. THANK YOU APRIL!!! Russ also received his new ankle braces from Amazon that will help him keep his ankles happy and healthy!
And a repost from our Instagram account. Our favorite photo yet.

Day 22 - Climb

• Miles traveled: 10.4
• Shelter: tent city at Locust Grove Gap
• High point: conquering the NOC climb
• Low point: not feeling well and hiking in the heat

We packed up our tent by the river. Noticed that the river was down considerably this morning. We headed back to the Rivers Edge restaurant for breakfast and to finish charging our phones and appliances.

Breakfast was very good but I was not feeling well afterwards so we hung around and hydrated. Once I was feeling better we began a climb that we were dreading for days.
We climbed over 3650ft out of the NOC in just under 8 miles. It was warm but the clouds kept providing some shade and cool breezes. It. Was. Hard. Some of the hardest stuff we have climbed since we started. We took our time and we took a lot of breaks.
We stopped at the top of Cheoah Bald for some amazing views before descending into Locust Grove gap where we are packed in like sardines. The terrain isn't great but it will work. We are exhausted but happy.