Date: 2009-06-05
From: Dennis Cove Rd.

To: Watauga Lake Shelter
Miles today: 10.7
Weather: light rain

We awoke to rain so no one was interested in hiking out.I rode along on the morning resupply run, but was dropped off, and later picked up, at a MacDonald¢s along the way to get breakfast and to make some phone calls while others got food.Finally, about 1:30, it had cleared a bit so I decided to head out. The first major stop was a big waterfall, Laurel Fork Falls. It involved a steep downhill hike, but was worth it even though it was still cloudy. From there, I hiked along the creek flowing from the falls. At one point I had to hike up out of the creek area and came to a fork in the trail. While trying to figure out which way to go, some local hikers came by and told me I really should take a shortcut and skip a 2,000 foot mountain ahead of me since it was getting too late and there was more bad weather ahead. So I took their advice and began to follow them down to a road where they were parked. Unfortunately, they out-walked me and soon were out of sight. When I came to another fork in the trail, I had no idea which way to go so I consulted my map and saw that the trail to the road continued to go right alongside the creek so I took the left trail. I learned later that the map had an error and this was the wrong trail! It soon turned into a much less well traveled path and finally pretty much gave out. Trusting the erroneous map, I stayed close to the creek and followed it downstream as we are all told to do when lost. Well, the path was soon completely gone and I was just bush-wacking along the bank of the creek until it finally turned into something of a gorge with no way out but up (or backtracking). So up I went, climbing about 40 feet, grasping rocks and trees to pull myself up to get to higher ground. I ripped my pants, getting really dirty along the way, but finally reached a ridge with a trail! ¢¦ Alas, not the right trail and it soon descended to the creek again, after the gorge part had ended, and then teh trail just disappeared. So a bit more bush-wacking was necessary until I came to a place with some houses on the other side of the creek. I went along the bank for about 100 yards thinking I might soon come to the road crossing, but no road was in sight so, lacking any other alternative, I took a deep breath and just walked the 50 feet across the creek and up to a home to ask for directions. The nice couple there gave me a Dr. Pepper, showed me where I was, and how to get to the road where the creek was headed (still about .25 mile away). After walking to that road, I got a ride with a real live "red neck" up to the point where I could re-join the AT.At that point, I happened to run into PoliPoli and Plowboy who had left Kincora the day before to meet up with her niece for the night. They had spent last night tenting in the storm and were now drying out on picnic tables while waiting for the niece to pick them up so I sat with them until she arrived. Then I hiked on to the shelter where I met Debbie, from Florida and about my age, already in residence. We got acquainted, had a nice chat, and ended up sharing the shelter alone, a first for me, but not for her since she is in the process of filling in gaps from an aborted thru hike she started in 2005.PhotosLaurel Fork FallsThe trail was rapidly disappearing after I took a wrong turnFinally I just waded across this creek and headed towards some homesI ended up at these folks' garage after being lost for about 90 minutes!My ride back to the AT with a real, live redneckPoliPoli and her nieceDebbie, from Florida