Date: 2008-05-02
From: Kincora Hostel, TN

To: Vandeventer Shelter, TN
Miles today: 17.5
Weather: broken clouds

I got in a car accident today.Wait. . .what? Aren't you suppoed to be HIKING???Lesson of the day: Do no give two teenagers from backcountry Tennessee $10 to take you to McDonald's in the bed of their beat up old pick up truck, who are incidentally skipping school for senior skip day, and who also lack car insurance.But let me start at the beginning. I woke up at 7:30AM, had the last two slices of my pizza for breakfast, and was on the trail by 8:40AM. I must have been the first person heading North on this part because I walked through spider webs along Laurel Fork Creek for the first few miles. I did get to see a waterfall and hike along some cliffs next to the creek.Then I began ascending Pond Flats, which was neither flat, nor had a pond on it. It was not a bad climb as I was fueled by all the pizza I had eaten. At the bottom of the mountain on the other side, the trail crossed a road and went along a picnic area next to Watauga Lake (part of the TVA).While I was waiting here for Bearpack and Bearbait to show up I noticed about a dozen teenagers and their cars hanging out by the lake. Once Bearpack and Bearbait showed up we had a quick conference and decided to see if we could hitch a ride from them into the nearby town of Elizabethton for lunch. We offered them $10 and shortly thereafter we were cruising down the road in the back of one of their old black beat up pick up trucks to McDonald's. Got there and had lunch and as we were coming back the car in front of us stopped to make a left hand turn. Our truck stopped behind it. It was then we looked behind us and saw a red pick up truck flying towards us that was not going to stop in time.I basically just had time to jump away from the tailgate against which I was leaning. The red truck smacked into the back of our truck and bounced back, causing us to pitch forward and then back as well as hit the car in front of us. I banged up bother of my elbows, but otherwise felt ok other than shaken up. Bearpack unfortunately was against the back of the cab and smacked the back of his head against the cab back window. Bearbait was mostly cusioned between us. Also two of our drinks exploded on us. Our truck was only a little dented on the tailgate and had its back bumper pushed in, while the red truck took a lot more damage and had oil spilling out into the road. The scariest part was that there was a tractor trailer behind the red truck which fortunately stopped in time. Had it not I'm sure a lot more damage and injury would have resulted.All three cars got off the road, and wait for it, here's the best part. . .Neither the teenagers, nor the owner of the red truck had car insurance. After ascertaining this fact and not wanting to get the police involved they both agreed to just take off. Not sure what happened to the other car, but it did not seem to be damaged at all. So the teenagers dropped us off back at the lake, at which point we learned that school was not out for the day, but they were just skipping school for senior skip day (which I admit I did back in high school too).Bearpack and Bearbait decided to only go to a shelter a mile and a half down the trail along the lake. We were all still shaken up and I think Bearpack wanted to see how his head would feel. I still had a lot of adrenaline rushing through me from the experience so I decided to hike on. I crossed the Watauga Lake Dam, which was a huge earthen structure carved out from the surround mountains. It was really pretty impressive. I made a long gradual climb up along the ridgeline to this shelter, which has a nice view behind it of the lake below. To cap off the day I had to hike a round trip of 0.6 miles downhill to get to the water source.