Day 11

Yesterday was a long day. 

Although I slept good, the 7 am alarm came quickly. We started getting a few things together, and headed back over to that breakfast place we ate at the day before. Somehow, I got even more food this time! 

We got back to the motel around 8:40, packed up the rest of our gear, and Patrice picked us up at 9. 

Upon arrival at the NOC, we needed to print out of smoky mountain permits, pick up a mail drop, and Spencer wanted to flip out some gear out. His sleeping pad has been deflating on him the entire trail, so before entering the smokies we wanted to fix that. 

After all our little tasks, we were on trail right around 10:10. Our morning had one goal, get up cheoah bald. It was a 4000 foot climb over the course of 8.2 miles and as I've explained before, my calves were certainly feeling it. 

We probably got to the top right around 2:30 and enjoyed a quick lunch. The view really was fantastic, I'll give it that, just a hard ascent and descent. 

The rest of the day consisted of minor ups and downs, except for one section near the end of the day called Jacob's ladder, which is 650 feet up over .4 or .5 miles. Pretty vertical. 

Since we got a late start, we wanted to take advantage of the 70 degree weather and sun, so we ended up hiking about 45 minutes into the night and getting to camp around 7:40. 

Today was also our longest day in terms of elevation change -- experiencing over a 10k shift in one day. 

I will say, we violated the leave no trace principle slightly, as we brought down a tree limb attempting to hang the bear bags. In our defense however, with it being dark, we somehow managed to miss the fact the limb was dead. It was a pretty small branch anyways, probably no more than 1.5 inches thick. 

Daily recap: 
- hiked 19.3 miles 
- from mile marker 136.9 to 156.2
- from the NOC to Cody gap
- high temp was 65 and sun
- low temp (morning) 45
- low temp (tonight) 45
- ascent: 6000 feet (roughly)
- descent: 4000 feet (roughly)

Thanks for following along. 
Tyler M.

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