Date: 2006-04-13
From: Moreland Gap Shelter

To: Watauga Lake Shelter
Miles today: 16.8
Weather: scattered clouds

4-13-06Moreland Gap Shelter to Watauga Lake Shelter16.8 miles        Even with that rain owl hooting, fortunately it did not rain. But let me just bitch for a minute here. There was some heavy snoring from Robby through out the night. The Turtles were quite the noisy shelter mates too, always getting up to go to the bathroom and moving around a lot. And the shelter floor was slanted! As one point, around midnight, I woke up with a start because Robby had yelled a real loud ¢What!?¢ freaking everybody out. Apparently the Turtles had shaken his foot to get him to stop snoring and that had startled him.        In good form, the Turtles were up at the crack of dawn, making noise. Everyone else lay around in their sleeping bags, almost until the Turtles left. Shanae and I had not slept well at all, so we were a bit slow in getting ourselves together in the morning. Even though Da Bear got out his sleeping bag after us, he still managed to leave earlier. By the time we left, Robby was still lying around ¢ he was a section-hiker that wasn¢t trying to make any major miles today.        We caught up to Bear pretty quickly as he was moving pretty slowly this morning. I tried to convince him to join us at the Laurel Fork Lodge for some ice cream and frozen pizza. He didn¢t seem too interested, so Shanae and I continued onward, over two small mountains, and down a few miles to Dennis Cove Road. Took a right onto the road, went another quarter mile, and crossed the bridge over Laurel Fork River into the Lodge area.        We dropped our packs on the hostel porch and went over to get some grub in us. We found some sodas, candy bars, and pop tarts, but the owner revealed the discouraging news that there was no ice cream or pizza. Crest fallen, we hung out in the hostel common room and munched on some snacks. Bear ended up making it there but was a bit ticked off when he heard there was no ice cream. The situation was made halfway better when the owner found us the number to a Pizza Plus that delivers to the Lodge, so we ordered a large pepperoni and some cheesesticks. I discovered there were some videotapes lying around, the best of which was ¢The Runaway Bride¢ (which was honestly the best movie there, as sad as that was). Shanae wanted to watch that, so she popped it in and we soaked in this romantic comedy. The pizza came, and a lodge worker let us have some beer that other people had left in the fridge. Pizza in one hand and beer in the other: Life was good!        After half of the chick flick was over, the videotape started making one of the most horrible noises I have ever heard. We tried to fast forward through it, but it persisted until the end. I figured that was a sign to get back on the trail after lounging for a couple of hours.        Back to hiking, we only went a little over a mile before we found the Laurel Fork Falls, a huge waterfall that feeds a white water river. Bear stripped to his shorts, jumped in, and started swimming around, not without a bit of cursing due to the temperature of the water. I followed shortly after, and discovered the water was only a bit warmer than the ocean¢s in Maine, so with a bit of hesitating, I finally got in completely in. I was afraid that I might lose my manhood in these frigid waters, but it was actually quite refreshing. Bear and I swam over to the opposite side of the falls, so that we could swim under the falls, which would dunk us under.        Bushwhacker stopped by; he had been slackpacking with the five girls (Tortoise, Low Key, 4-today, Saspirilla, and Crumbs) but had gotten ahead of them. I got out of the water to warm up, discovering what I had thought to be a really bad tan line on my legs was just a lot of dirt that had washed off in the water. Feeling clean and refreshed, I sat on some rocks, drying out before putting my boots back on. Back to making miles.         We hiked for a couple of minutes before running into the girls and talking to them for a bit. The trail continued along, with a cliff rising up to our right, and the river washing past us on our left. Bear almost stepped on a snake, and when we bent down to take a look at it, it hopped in the river and swam away.        The trail was relatively flat for another mile, as we walked along the river back, but we soon began our steep two mile uphill climb. We saw many lizards out among the rocks. About halfway up, Shanae thought we were done with the climb, but when I told we still had another mile, the mountain almost defeated her. With a good amount of breaks, we made it to the top, where there were some camping sights. Going down the other side we spotted a couple coming up in jeans (!) on this hot day.        We made it the four miles down and cruised through the last couple of miles along Watauga Lake. When we got to the Watauga Lake shelter, we were the only ones there. With our feet free and out of our boots, we set up our sleeping bags and I made a small fire. We ate and everything was dark, with some light from the full moon. We heard a few gunshots around so we were glad when Bear finally made it into camp. He cooked and soon all of us were in our sleeping bags, talking.        Just as we were about to go to sleep, we heard some other hikers along the trail. A guy and a girl arrived at our shelter, and unexpected pair of trail angels. Pickles and Little Tree were their trail names from when they hiked in 2002 and had brought beer, orange juice, and strawberries. We stayed up with them as long as our eyelids would stay up and drank some beers, talking to them about their thruhike. One thing to learn on the trail: expect the unexpected.