Springer Mtn, GA to Fontana Dam, NC

Day 14, Monday, June 5

Nantahala Outdoor Center, 0 miles

I wake up around 4 AM and hear the pitter-patter of raindrops on the metal roof of our cabin. It gets louder as the minutes tick on. I drift in and out of sleep for the next two hours, listening to the rain and wondering what today will be like. I finally get up at 6:30 AM and begin to sort out my gear and the food from the mail drop.

Keith hops out of bed and leaves. He's headed back to Atlanta today and the rain only hastens his leave.

I head for the shower. I figure I might as well take one. Enjoy all of the hot water I can as long as I can. As I head back to the bunkhouse, the rain only intensifies. I meet up with M&L and we walk over to the River's End Restaurant for breakfast at 8 AM. We stop to mail some extra gear home. I mail 7.9 pounds of gear and extra food home. Getting lighter every day.

We head back to the restaurant. No sign of any of the others. I wonder if they've headed out this morning.

We eat a big breakfast. Gravy biscuits, pancakes with bacon. Delicious. We sit looking out the window at the river in the pouring rain. We decide it's probably better to lay over for the day and start fresh tomorrow. It's a long climb out of Nantahala Gorge and it would be very muddy and sloppy in the rain. This will be our fist zero day of the trip. All of the groups seem to have a little trouble deciding what to do. Everyone wants to hike, but no one wants to get wet.

I head over to the NOC office to make reservations for tonight for the three of us. I'm going to move in with M&L for tonight. Everyone else is planning to head out if the rain slackens. Three Southbounders, including "Zipper" that we met last night, head out for Wesser Bald.

I spend the morning looking through the store for the third time. I find someone who is going to help me fix my water filter while M&L head to the bunkhouse for a nap. The Basecamp is full of kids this morning. They are running, dancing, stomping, kids being kids. The rain is affecting them too.

"Frogger" and Aaron head out around noon. I didn't see "Mule-boy" and "Cypress" leave this morning, but they must have left. They were planning to head out at first light. I call home to switch my pickup time at Fontana. I was a day ahead of my schedule until today. If I can reach Fontana in two days, instead of the three I budgeted, I'll still finish a day ahead overall. Taking today off means two fifteen-mile days in order to reach Fontana by Wednesday afternoon. Our endurance and pace has climbed steadily each day. I think it is doable, especially with today's rest. Fresh legs will help.

The rain begins to slacken by 12:20 PM. I take my filter over to the outfitter store to troubleshoot. As I cross the railroad tracks, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad's coal-fired train is stopped on the tracks. I stop and talk with the engineer for a few minutes and then head for the store to find Lois. She's the water filter expert.

Lois runs my water filter through all of the paces and she gets the same results that I've been getting....mixed. I bought a new cartridge at Walasi and I thought that was the solution. It was for two days, then I began to have the same problems that I was having before. Sometimes it primes, sometimes it doesn't. For a hundred dollar water filter, I'm disappointed that it hasn't worked better. I leave it with her to work on. She is going to call the PUR technical folks for some additional help.

I contrast my experience here at the Nantahala Outdoor Center versus at Walasi-Yi. Here everyone has been more than helpful. At Walasi, Dorothy and her daughter were cheerful, if a little ditzy, while Jeff seemed aloof and removed, more interested in his bookkeeping than helping customers. He was too busy bitching about some young girl who was buying shoes versus helping other folks in the store. Maybe I just hit them on a bad day. After everything I'd heard about Walasi, maybe I was expecting more.

I buy a pint of Ben and Jerry's vanilla ice-cream and head back across the river. I stop at Slow Joe's for a chili-cheese dog and sit down for lunch. M&L come down the hill after taking a short nap and Lydia finishes my ice-cream. I head for the room and take a nap from 3 PM to 4 PM. I wake up when Monty comes back to the room. As I get out of bed, I notice that my left knee and ankles have swollen up a lot during the day. "Mule-boy" said it would happen and he was right. I guess they didn't get a pounding today so they are mad at me?

I head back over to the NOC Outfitter Store to check on Lois' progress with my water filter. When I get there, she is excited. She's learned a new trick to fix PUR filters. There is a small rubber band on the filter cartridge itself that covers four holes on the cartridge. Apparently those holes can plug with dirt and even though that fix isn't on the troubleshooting list, the folks at PUR suggested that she check them. You have to remove the rubber sleeve to even know there are holes there. The filter works like a champ now. We'll see how long it lasts.

When I get back to the room, I decide to take another shower before we head back to the River's End for dinner. This will be our last prepared meal at Wesser and we chow down again. After talking for a few minutes, we decide to see if one of the paddlers staying at the NOC will carry our packs around to the next road crossing. This would make our climb out of the gorge easier and allow us to regain some time we lost today. We would have a better chance of making Fontana in two days. But so far no luck in finding him. It figures.

Monty and I walk up the river and watch some of the paddlers still on the river negotiate Nantahala Falls and the cascades around the falls. It looks like fun. I remember from previous trips how cold the water in the river is. It has to be extra cold today because the air temperature isn't very high after the rain.

We head back to the cabin and tell Lydia the bad news about not finding someone to carry our packs. We continue to look for the guy we met during the evening, but no luck.

I sleep hard for an hour and then wake up to the downpour of rain about 10:30 PM. A thunderstorm that lasts for several hours. So much for the weather forecast that things are clearing.