About 60 years ago as N’s family was preparing for a rare trip to Asheville and the North Carolina mountains, his old maid aunt Elizabeth told him repeatedly “Just think, you’ll be able to wash your face in the clouds!” N’s young mind pictured pulling into a scenic vista parking lot where he’d run over and grab a handful of cloud from this big glob just beyond the pavement, and splash it all over his tiny little face. N kept urging his father to drive faster on the early morning ride out of Asheville to observe this amazing phenomenon, and he was quite devastated when he learned it was “just an expression.” The mere fact he remembers the incident six decades later shows how it traumatized the little fella.

That is until this morning, when we had to deal with the reality of not only washing our faces, but bathing every other part of our bodies and all of our gear in this big glob of cloud that engulfed our campsite. Some expression indeed!

We stayed in the tent until 6:20 hoping the cloud would lift, but wound up packing everything away slow and damp. (In fact, the clouds stayed with us until the late afternoon.)

After two miles of just enough up and down to keep us from getting in an even rhythm, we dropped into Tellico Gap, where we could see the Wesser Bald tower right on the dividing line between clear and fog. The climb up to Wesser was easier than we remembered, and ascending the tower, we indeed had 180° of great view and 180° of clouds.

We thought the downhill six-mile hike into the NOC would be easy, but the downhill rock hopping at “The Jumpoff” really slowed us down, and it seemed like forever before we rolled into the hectic world of the Nantahala Outdoor Center at 4:00 p.m. We picked up a resupply package, did laundry, and had two great burgers at River’s Edge while watching kayakers practice for tomorrow’s racing. The end of the day could not be more different from its start as we lie in this comfortable bed, slightly above, and not 75 yards from, the AT.

There’s eight miles of uphill and rain Saturday’s forecast, but we’ll deal with that tomorrow…