Date: 2008-03-26
From: Unnamed Campsite Dennis Cove TN

To: Unnamed Campsite TN
Miles today: 13.9

Day 38 ¢ Wednesday March 26 ¢ Unnamed Campsite TN ¢ Miles Today: 13.9 Total Miles: 427It was 42 this morning; one of our warmer mornings which turned into one of our warmer days. We actually did not wear our rain jackets or pants all day long. Woo, Hoo! The trail really does make you appreciate the small things in life.After leaving camp, we walked just a few tenths of a mile to the clean spring, dumped our polluted water (away from the spring) and re-filtered. DRATS! People had talked about killer inclines that we would have today. We had a good one in the morning on an empty stomach for about an hour and a half, which was difficult; the one this afternoon was not so bad, perhaps because our bellies were full of food and energy. We walked over Watauga Dam today. It's actually an earth dam and we could see on the other side the 9 terraces that make up the dam so that was pretty cool to see. Next up was hiking around Watauga Lake, which is a beautiful huge lake. There are no homes on the lake, perhaps because it is all National Forest. We walked around half of the lake today; first around the south end and then all along the one side of it. As we were going around the south end, we came across a little camping area and found Lone Wolf, the occasional hiker that we met at the laundromat in Hot Springs! So we sat down and chatted with him for about 15 minutes before heading on up the trail. He mentioned a bear had been near his campsite during the evening. His dog had alerted him of the unexpected company. Lone Wolf also told us that Carvers Gap (about 700¢ below Roan Mountain) got 8¢ of snow the other day; the same day we hiked in 1/2" of snow heading into Dennis Cove.   We¢re guessing that Roan Mountain probably got a foot of snow. We missed it by just 2 days! Our timing was superb (by pure luck and chance)!After we left Lone Wolf, we hiked the mountain ridges along the lake and could peer down to see the lake and count 3 major marinas that service the lake. Another day without seeing any thru-hikers despite Lone Wolf telling us there were 14 hikers at Kincora Hostel last night. We ran into a couple day hikers but I think all the thru-hikers must be going shelter to shelter and we seem to be going campsite to campsite so we're not seeing each other. The one weekend hiker that we ran into came from Damascus and was going south to Watauga Dam, which is the general area where he lives. He had heard about a couple getting rescued out of the Smokies because of the flu bug. Ah, that would be US!   He heard the rescue news from Hammer and Nails who he saw a few days ago.   It¢s amazing how good the communication can be up and down the trail. We started looking for the spring around 3:45 and found some water about 4:00 trapped between some boulders. We stocked up on 96 oz. and decided to hike to the next flat spot, which wasn't too much later.   A bit after 4:00 we pitched our tent in a great camp spot beside a row of rhododendron. We hiked about 14 miles today. We wanted to avoid Vandeventer Shelter tonight, as we have heard horror stories about the water source being down a ridiculously steep decline. One thing none of us like after a long day of hiking is to have to HIKE to a water source! So tonight we are camped just shy of the shelter.We cooked a double batch of macaroni and cheese for dinner, our second night of double sized dinners. The infamous hiker appetite has arrived. We'll probably continue having double sized dinners occasionally - not every single night but occasionally, as we need to watch how much food weight we carry. Gorgeous day. Mostly clear; some gray occasionally but it would disappear. At times we actually had a good little sweat going. We had our socks and tee shirts airing outside the tent earlier and now they hang inside the tent.We've enjoyed the warmest evening that we've had on the entire trip. It's 7:00 and 62 degrees in the tent. We have both tent vestibules open enjoying the cool but warm air, per our definition. We¢re lying just on our mats, not even using the sleeping bags at the moment. This is the good life. We¢ve been waiting for this nicer weather for quite some time.We¢re looking forward to hitting Damascus in a couple days. The next couple days should be easy. Tomorrow will be about a 15-mile day, the following day about 13-miles. Then we have just a couple miles to head into Damascus before the post office closes. It's not going to be much longer before we hit the Virginia border! So goodnight from still in Tennessee.