(3/21)

     It was a late morning for us. I woke up around 6:30 am but realized that I had been sleeping amazing, it was raining, and didn’t want to move. So I didn’t. 

     We finally woke up and did our morning chores then were on trail by 8:45. It was still raining but we warmed up quickly. The trail was pretty flat today. We dropped down to Laurel Falls where we stopped for lunch. While we were eating a fellow through hiker named Nor’easta stopped to talk with us. We ran into this guy briefly just before Standing Bear but didn’t talk much at the time. Today we talked as we ate about the weather and the other hikers we had all met so far. Apparently Nor’easta hiked the whole trail in 2018 and had snow all the way to where we are now. 

     The falls themselves were impressive. For a relatively small stream the water was very powerful.

     After lunch we hiked on. We had to make it through an inconveniently placed 6 mile section where camping is banned. This meant we either had to hike a 16 mile day or a 22 mile day. We didn’t want to take another shorter day so we pushed our longest day yet.

As we were hiking away from the Laurel Fork River, the trail took us through some pretty cool rock structures.

     By the afternoon we made it to Watauga lake. The lake itself is quite large. The trail took us around a good section of it and gave us some pretty cool views.

Our first view of the lake, as we hiked away from the Laurel Fork River.

Our final view of Watauga Lake, from nearly the other side of the lake. We hiked
around 7 miles to get here from where the first picture was taken.
Here, we are standing on the dam, looking back at the lake.

The view from the other side of the dam, 180 degrees from the previous picture
was of what I assume was the old river bed (it looks like it was quarried as well). As Tyler pointed out, it is interesting
to think that this is what the lake might look like without any water in it.

     Finally, as we were nearly completely drained, we reached Watauga Dam, which meant we only had a couple miles left on the day. But these miles were mostly up hill. We had already hiked 21 miles, more than we hike most days. We pushed through the last two miles and found a camp site just passed the no-camping section. 

     We set up camp and ate dinner. As we were eating Nor’easta passed us. He plans to hike all the way to Damascus, another 40 miles without stopping and will probably arrive mid-day tomorrow. We will probably see him there in two days.

     Apparently the state of Maryland closed the section of the AT to all camping until May 21st. We will have to pass through Maryland before then. This means that we will either have to hike the whole 40+ mile section without stopping or we will have to get a ride past Maryland altogether and go back when it reopens so that we don’t skip anything. As long as other states don’t start doing the same thing we will be able to figure it out.

Goodnight.

Walker