Tuesday march 19

Soggy night after the storm.
The good news is my tent did as well as one could expect a tent to do in a thunderstorm complete with hail....mud splashed on the sides, condensation on the underneath of the rainfly. As I closed out the blog last night, I left you dangling regarding whether I would use my down bag, (since I really am trying to avoid getting those fluffy down feathers wet& I was decently warm with all my clothing on.) I checked the weather and it looked like the rain was over. When I sat up in the tent to unpack, I realized my sleeping pad was soaking wet.
Because I am a trail supergenious, I didn't think about my wet rain gear soaking my sleeping pad underneath me..I  was just so cold and nervous about the weather, I wasn't thinking about the obvious..duh.
I dried it off as best I could with my damp bandana and then rationalized that it was ok if the bottom of my bag got a little damp since the insulation was getting crushed anyway underneath me...
I slept as well as usual: woke up every hour or so to roll over, but careful to stay on my sleeping pad as the floor of the tent was damp...one dilemma I'm having is that I sleep much better with ear plugs, but they hurt the inside of my ears...like a decubitus ulcer from the constant pressure in my canal....so I take them out..then I can heat all the snoring and all the bears sneaking around looking for the food bag that's beside me inside the tent...
Woke up to frozen condensation and dew this morning..cold as everything but easy to shake off the tent for packing away.
After a few climbs, the downhill to nantahala started. It was a very harsh and precarious start, too. There is a place called the jump off and now I know why! It looks like there is nowhere to go, like the trail dead ends off the side of the mountain. I stepped back and looked around to make sure I didn't miss a turn or something and came to the conclusion that, "no, this really is the way I'm supposed to go"..I looked down to the right and had to let go of my poles to use my hands to lower myself down...I could've jumped off the end of the mountain and landed on the trail, but it would've killed me as it was about 50 feet down...
I passed silver streak, old goat, the ferret trio(domino, fidget, dude), and John on the way down the mountain. I didn't rest at all for the whole 6 posh miles and avg speed was 2.06mph...getting better!
Arrived at noc about 1pm, bathed me and my stinky clothing in the hot shower for about 30 minutes...sat out in the sun and dried for a couple hours; dried out my toes and my clothing, tent, sleeping pad and turkey bags...really nice..zag made it even better by bringing up beer and a pint of Ben &Jerry's peanut butter cup ice cream...yes, that was lunch.
After she showered, we went down to the outfitter and they replaced her leaky sleeping pad. very good as she's Ben having to reinflate it several times each night, meaning she's cold and uncomfortable..no good for hiking!
Had dinner with old goat and silver steak. Sleeping in the bunkhouse tonight: 1 set of bunk beds per room and a bench, must walk about 15 yards to the bath house...
Tomorrow we hike 6 miles up  out of this river canyon to the next shelter (sassafras gap) expecting really cold temps the next 2 nights...not looking forward to that, but as long as it's not raining, it's tolerable.
There's apparently some snow forecast for the smokies next week, we're hoping it won't interfere with our schedule. The problem with the smokies is the elevation makes it much colder, and were not really equipped to negotiate or survive significant amounts of snow..
Don't want to worry, just want to keep an eye on things and have a secondary plan..
Pics: me &old goat @dinner
Airing out my toes and gear