Date: 2013-09-28
From: Dennis Cove Road

To: US 321 - Watauga Lake
Miles today: 8.6
Weather: overcast clouds

The hike started along a smooth and relatively level railroad grade. The area was heavily logged at one time and the lumber was taken out by rail. There are several spots where the grade was cut through stone. After about a mile, there is a steep descent to Laurel Falls, with a great deal of stone step work. The water flow was not that heavy, due to lack of rain, but the falls were still pretty. In 2012, a father and son drowned while swimming at the falls, and the AWOL book warns of a dangerous whirlpool. There's a memorial sign there, the hiker's trail names were Whitey and Red-Headed Stranger. When I was a child, one of the summer camps I attended took us on a trip where the main attraction was the opportunity to swim into a whirlpool under a waterfall. They coached us to take a deep breath, let the water carry us down, and then relax and let the current carry us back up to the surface and out of the whirlpool. Probably it wasn't as safe as they lead us to believe.There's a spot where the trail goes very close to the river, and there's some masonry work that keeps it in place. This would be hazardous in high water. There's a blue-blazed bypass trail which should be used if there has been a lot of rainfall recently. The area around the falls is accessible by an easy trail from US 321, and it is heavily used. I saw a number of good campsites beside the river. Soon the trail heads back up for the ascent of Pond Mountain. The profile reflects a nice cone shape, approximately 1,700 feet up and then back down to the Shook Branch Recreation Area. There is a small seasonal pond at the top, close to the trail. It was dry when I was there. It's an easy climb, consisting mainly of well-graded switchbacks. There is a lot of trail maintenance in the general area which I noticed during the week I was hiking there. In one area there is a notice, about the Golden-winged warbler, which is an upland bird that needs a certain amount of open space. The open areas along the trail are being kept that way, to help the birds, with the incidental side effect of making the hike more pleasant, with a mix of meadows and woods. In another spot, there is a memorial bench, and a view has been created by cutting the woods back opposite the bench. I like the effect, and sometimes after making a strenuous ascent only to find the view obscured by trees I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to clear of few of them out to make for a more open vista.There's a spot above Dennis Cove Road where the trail has been rerouted along the edge of a cliff to bring in some nice views. The rocks there are rounded, and in bad weather would be slippery, with a progressively steeper slope once the hiker lost his footing. There was some work cutting a level path across the rocks, quite easily seen since the rock weathers gray but is tan colored when cut. I'm in favor of anything that makes the trail safer and easier to walk. It took me somewhat longer to do the hike than I had planned, so I called Jeanne and rescheduled the pickup for two hours later. Wireless service is varied in the area, ranging from no signal on parts of Dennis Cove Road to 5 bars of 4G at Route 321.