Date: 2019-04-29
From: Tentsite at mile 412.7

To: Shook Branch Rd / Boots Off Hostel
Miles today: 15.7
Weather: overcast clouds

I'm up with the birds at 6:30 at the tentsite. It's chillier than I expected, around 45 degrees. There was a clear sky and plenty of stars last night, at least beyond all the trees. Late in the night I saw someone hike past the tentsite.Gina, Belch and I breakfast and plan a side trip to Hampton for lunch at the side trail past Laurel Falls. Our evening goal is tricky because the Watauga Dam shelter 18 miles out has been long closed due to bear activity, but the only closer shelter is only nine miles away. Boots Off Hostel near Watauga Lake looks like the best option.Early on I meet Trigger, a 63-year-old former Marine and Boston boy hiking south from Harpers Ferry. He'll flip back to Harpers to hike to Katahdin. Behind him are two true southbounders, a man and woman who started last June, got off at Daleville near Roanoke, Virginia for the winter, and got back on April 2nd. All three stayed with Sovereign last night and aver he was acting as anti-social and erratic as we witnessed. He told them he was off his medication and asked for food so he wouldn't have to go into town. They also claim he punched the husky.Mr. President, the former Marine One guard, is still at the shelter when I arrive. He called the sheriff's office to report Sovereign and tells how Sovereign hid the husky's dog tags to prevent anyone seeing the owner's name. Mr. President and Trigger, both ex-Marines, slept very little, with trekking poles at the ready in case anything happened. Meanwhile my late night hiker stopped at this shelter. He goes by the name High Mileage. He confronted Sovereign in the morning about his history and took the husky from him before hiking out. Sovereign later followed and is not far ahead of us now.I finally get signal on a hill and answer texts and emails and post my journal for the last two days while several people hike past. Moving on I catch up with Beast and hike with him for awhile. He's from New Jersey and on leave from a twenty-year career as a mechanical engineer in water treatment applications. He's thinking of going independent in consulting when he gets back. He's got a ten-year-old son at home who wants to finish the trail with his dad when he gets out of school in June.Suddenly we hear Ninja ahead making a commotion. Not sure whether she's laughing or being attacked, we hurry down and find she almost stepped on a five foot snake. But we don't see it. Too bad our snake (and bird) experts Peregrine and Baby Bear aren't here.Down at Dennis Cove Rd we find an incredible trail magic setup. Sisters Spice Girl and Tough Cookie (AT '17) along with their mom and dad and dog Blaze are from Lexington, Kentucky and have set up by the creek for three days to do trail magic and give back the kindness they received. Dad, a cabinet maker for very high-end retailers nationwide, is cooking up hand-formed smashburgers on a huge portable fryer. Two of these with cheese, bacon, onions, pickles, soda, beer, chips, brownies, cookies, hard-boiled eggs, oranges, and leftover pancakes from breakfast sate the hiker hunger for awhile. And just as I'm about to leave they offer me a bona-fide mimosa! Not what I thought I'd be drinking today when I woke up. When the Jim Beam comes out I know it's time to go.Lots of hikers come through while I'm here. Safety First, another ex-Misfit, Groove and Sweet Tooth, Mr. President, Beast, Ninja, Belch and Gina, Peregrine and Baby Bear, Puck, Genius, even The Colonel, whose wife has gone back home - everyone I've met in the last two days. Except Sovereign. He caused a lot of commotion while he was here earlier, drinking so much that our host had to cut him off and give him a stern warning. He begged not to be kicked out. Eventually the owner of the nearby Black Bear hostel drove Sovereign into Hampton to get food, after giving him a shower and clean clothes. He doesn't return in the two hours I'm at the trail magic. (Has it really been two hours?)Finally tearing myself away, I enter the lovely Laurel Creek canyon. High rock cliffs loom over the roaring creek below. In places the trail has been blasted through knobs of rock rather than running over them. Surely this must have been an old roadbed. Too much trouble for a hiking trail.The mountain laurel are starting to bloom. The purple flowers soften the stark stone cliffs as I cross the creek several times on footbridges.When I reach Laurel Falls, Gina and Belch are just leaving after an hour-long foot soak. It's been a hot couple miles and I'm ready to cool off. I whip off my shoes and shirt and wade over the rocks into the bracingly cold water. The bottom rocks are too difficult to navigate to get all the way out to the falls, but I take a brief dip before drying out in the sun. The trail winds along the creek for another mile, at one point hugging a rock face with a narrow footpath inches from the swirling waters. Past the Laurel Fork shelter the trail heads up, up, up some 1800 feet over the next couple miles. It's a good, sweaty climb, but bittersweet for me. It looks like the last challenging climb before I finish the AT in Damascus. I've been through countless ascents, some very memorable, others blur together. But climbs make the trail worth hiking. The views, the exercise, the challenge, the feeling of hitting your limit, and then digging deeper to reach the summit. I've had some choice words for some of these climbs in the past, and they don't always reward you with views, but I wouldn't trade any of them for an easier trail.The climb is well switchbacked and never very steep. It ends at a place called Pond Flats, which is neither flat nor has a pond. In fact it looks like many other summits in the south. The downhill is continuous with good tread, so I take the opportunity to call home and talk with the kids. Surprisingly service is quite good on this side of the mountain. I love hearing their voices. This time it's only a few days before I see them again.At the bottom I turn up Shook Branch Road toward Boots Off Hostel. Their van rolls in from the road and Jim, the owner, gives me a lift up his gravel driveway. I only have two thoughts on my mind: a cold drink and a ride into town for dinner. After considering the a la carte costs of a ride and a shower, I decide to tent here tonight. Twelve dollars covers it all. I set up the tent on a flat dirt platform down the hill from the kitchen and shower.Jim drives me and Gumby, one of only two other guests, into town, picking up Gina and Belch on the way. Dollar General for a minimal resupply, Subway for dinner, McDonald's for second dinner, and Brown's Grocery for a fuel canister. I meet the owner, Sutton Brown, at Subway where he's brought a hiker who's staying at his own hostel in town. The talk turns to Sovereign the crazy guy, who some have been calling Machete after an incident where he apparently threatened someone with one. All the stories have by now disseminated across social media. Sutton tells us Sovereign did indeed come into town today, but eventually got picked up by the sheriff. He called it an arrest, but who knows. In any case Sovereign doesn't seem to be coming back to the trail today. Jim has to get back to the hostel but Odie, a trail angel who follows the bubble and publishes the Hiker Yearbook, takes over and shuttles us in the converted school bus in which he lives. Odie has talked to Bob Peoples, owner of the local Kincora hostel (and long-time trail maintainer whose legend is larger than life - Bob Peoples gives boots blisters! Bears hang food bags for Bob Peoples! Bob Peoples checks the permits of Smoky Mountain rangers! Mice bring Bob Peoples food!). Bob managed to reunite the husky recovered by High Mileage with its owner. So at least some damage this guy has been wreaking is being repaired.Some more folks have arrived late to the hostel. Foundation, a lanky guy who hiked over 30 miles from route 19E today; Safety First, from the trail magic; and Grasshopper, who I stayed with at Laurel Hostel before Erwin. Grasshopper is much happier with the accommodations here. He's also sporting a new walking stick, having accidentally dropped the one he's carried for the last four hundred miles into Laurel Creek today, where the trail hugs the rock wall. Another day filled with twists and turns. The AT constantly reminds us that it is much more than a walk in the woods.