Date: 2008-03-25
From: Unnamed Campsite TN

To: Unnamed Campsite Dennis Cove TN
Miles today: 11.3

Day 37 ¢ Tuesday March 25 ¢ Unnamed Campsite Dennis Cove TN ¢ Miles Today: 11.3 Total Miles: 413.1We woke to 20 degrees outside and about a 1/2" of snow on the ground. We were definitely closer to Moreland Gap Shelter than we thought as we left at 8:00 and hit the shelter at 9:30. We were probably around mile marker 401.8 or 402 last night, making it an 18-mile day yesterday. We had beautiful clear blue sky all day long and walked in snow pretty much until Dennis Cove, although it was just 12¢ deep, so therefore not a problem. The snow was actually very pretty. In one of the open green pastures on the way down to Dennis Cove, we saw a deer, our first wildlife on the trail! Woo-Hoo!Since our guidebook was inaccurate in a couple places yesterday, when we crossed a Forest Service road this morning about 11:30 we wondered if it was Dennis Cove Road that we were looking for. Dennis Cove Road would take us off the trail to the Kincora Hostel where we had a food drop waiting for us. Nothing was marked well, so we could not confirm our location. We studied our miles again and decided it was too early to be Dennis Cove Road and we kept hiking. There was definitely anxiety in our decision. Our worst fear was that if we were wrong, we¢d have to backtrack 2.5 miles to our food drop, as we had zero food left. We had eaten our breakfast, our Pemmican MealPac and the rest of the M&Ms. The only food left was our emergency dinner, so we were really hoping we had made the right decision on hiking past the Forest Service Road. It turned out that we were correct! We arrived at the Dennis Cove Hostel, known as Kincora Hostel, a little after 1:00 and, unfortunately, Bob, the owner, was away at the hospital where apparently his wife is very ill. The bad news on top of that was that our package with all of our food was in his house. Since our plans called for us to continue hiking today, we really did not have a lot of time on our hands. We spoke with the other thru-hikers who were there and it sounded like it could be several hours before Bob returned. We checked the door and it was unlocked. We talked to a Canadian middle-aged hiker (Uncle Max aka Sandlewood) staying at the hostel, mentioned our predicament and we all agreed that we should go in and see if we couldn't find the box. Brakeman was nominated to go in and find the box. Immediately upon entering the house, with Grasshopper standing outside the door, Brakeman started to giggle. Grasshopper said, "Brakeman, are you playing with the dog or are you looking for our box?" Brakeman responded with more laughter, "The hound dog has me pinned against the couch." Apparently this dog was in dire need of loving and attention. Not sure if Brakeman could really have done a better job defending himself against the 100 pound, waist high hound dog needing some loving! About 15 minutes later, coated head to toe in dog hair, Brakeman exited the home with our food box as well as a box from Jim Dale with more dark chocolate sticks! This time we are going to try to ration them, as there are only 9 per box and they make a wonderful after dinner treat. A similar box from Jim that he sent to Hot Springs lasted only 1 hour.   Grasshopper sure does love her chocolate! Inside the food drop box was a bag of microwavable popcorn! Luckily the hostel had a microwave, so we popped it up and ate it while we sorted and repacked our food, which continues to be a very lengthy process. We also had a container of Pringles in the shipment, so we ate that as well.There were 4 thru-hikers at the hostel - one younger couple and two individuals who we had not met before, Captain Neckbeard and Banjo. The Canadian Uncle Max, and his niece, Chatter were also there. They are section-hikers. We figured that we were in between groups of thru-hikers, as we have not seen any on the trail for the last couple days, which is OK with us. We've actually been tenting away from the shelters lately. It¢s a bit more quiet and personal away from the shelters and it enables us to keep our own schedule without interfering with the others. Josh & Amanda and Hammer & Nails left the hostel this morning so they are about 1 day ahead of us, which is quite surprising. We figured Josh & Amanda would be much further ahead of us after our unplanned stay in Gatlinburg and our 2 night stay in Hot Springs. Shortly after leaving Dennis Cove we came to the beautiful Laurel Fork Falls.   We walked down a huge ravine via 75 stone steps carved out of the rock cliff.   It's quite a steep descent but the beautiful falls at the end make it worthwhile. Then we walked along the creek. For one section, we hiked on a little stone walkway hugging the river to our immediate left and the cliff wall to our immediate right. Ahhh, this explains to us why they have a blue blaze trail above this area in the event of high water, as our little walkway straddling the river and the cliff wall could be under water! Our game plan was to head to Laurel Fork Shelter, located 100 yards off the AT on a blue blaze trail - ugh. Thru-hikers hate backtracking off the AT! We got up there to find no suitable site at all for tenting so we continued back down the blue blaze to the AT again. Our revised game plan was to hike until we found a level spot even if it meant heading to the Pond Flats, which was 4 miles away. But luckily within just a couple tenths of a mile we found a nice creek side tenting area and set up camp shortly after 4:00. Laurel Fork has tons of beavers doing tons of damage to the trees. In addition to looking for the dead trees and making sure we didn't set up our tent below them, we also had to look to make sure there were no trees in the middle of beaver art work. There are trees down all over the place. It appears that we got a couple extra dinners in our food drop; maybe they figured our appetites would be here by now and they definitely are. So we made a delicious cheese potato soup using the entire package, which feeds 8 people! Just the two of us ate it all; it was actually quite over filling. Yum.Our creek side campsite area is obviously a common area for day hikers, as we had a couple people walk by through the evening. As Brakeman was hanging the food bag, a day hiker who lives nearby came by and explained to him a couple things about the area where we are camping ¢ Dennis Cove. First of all, there are neither ticks nor fleas in the area. A government study has been underway for the past twenty-four years trying to determine why there are no fleas in the area. He also mentioned that because of the lack of nuts and other edible things, there are no deer, squirrel or bear that live in that area. They might pass through to another area but they are not living in Dennis Cove. He unfortunately also explained to us that Laurel Creek, where we had just filtered 96 oz. of water, is highly polluted. His brother works for the EPA and apparently an elderly man upstream was storing a bunch of car batteries, which leaked and then leached into the stream. In addition apparently other homes' sewers are probably going into the stream as well. Sounds like we¢ll be dumping this water and re-filtering tomorrow morning at another site just down the trail. It's pretty much of a bummer because the cartridge in our filter must be getting pretty clogged up and dirty, as it's very labor intensive to use. When we hit the next town, Damascus, we're definitely going to get a new cartridge for the filter.It's a beautiful warm evening.   After starting off at 20 degrees we're at 55 degrees in our tent at 7:15. We¢re enjoying the soft white water rapid noise of the stream and calling it a night. Tomorrow is a big day; lots of hills with a couple thousand feet elevation gains.   Then we should have two easy days into Damascus. So goodnight from Dennis Cove.