We started in Tellico

[Gam]

Started in Tellico with no real plan. That's why I didn't take many pics, we didn't want to stop, we were too focused on figuring out where we were, where we were going, and finding a good place to camp. From Tellico we went North River, Santeetlah, Tatum Gap, over to Wayah Rd, took FS 711 off of that. Everyone should do FS 711 at least once, one side of the mountain is a mixture of pavement and dirt, not pavement ending and then dirt, it is  extremely eroded pavement.  Looks like I got the paving contract. But the other side is good pavement, and there are 2 or three great overlooks. That's Lake Nantahala in the distance:


From FS 711 it is a short stretch of pavement to Rainbow Springs Rd. Pretty long chunk of dirt road and the second half is hard packed and completely smooth, lots of straight stretches and sweepers, you can play you are fast there. Not far from where you come out on Rainbow Springs is Standing Indian Campground Rd. which is dirt almost all the way to Otto, NC. Standing Indian Campground was closed but we found a good campsite on down the road.  I had this new tent with a huge vestibule on one side and pretty big vestibule on the other side. All my stuff would fit in there and still leave plenty of room to cook or whatever in the rain, so I was sort of hoping for a little rain to see how it all worked. I got a lot more rain than I wanted. Clay woke me up somewhere around 2:00 a.m.,  the kickstand sank on the big BMW and down it went,  nearly knocked him the head while in his tent. By morning there was a river flowing under my tent, it didn't come through the tent floor, but ran under the floor and started to flood under my fancy vestibule, so I had to drag all my crap into the tent.


The next morning it was pea soup fog in the higher elevations, this is right before you come out in Otto. We knew we in for another night of rain, and probably lightning if we headed north, so we just took pavement  back to the Cherohala Motorcycle Resort and took refuge in a cabin and a Rib Eye steak at the Tellico Cafe.

[Guidedawg]

It looks like a beautiful area and your second night was somewhat more comfortable than your first!