Date: 2017-04-09
From: Moreland Gap Shelter

To: Stealth camping after Watauga
Miles today: 20.4
Weather: clear sky

What a difference a day makes. I had set my alarm to get up at 6:30, and it was not cold in the tent. I hardly needed my jacket as I dismantled the tent. It felt like it was in the 50s. I got going at 7:54 to the sound of a nearby woodpecker hammering away. I felt a bit tired in contrast to my starts on the last two days. The opening salvo was a steep climb up from the shelter that had me panting, then sweating. But then came level and descending segments. One of the disadvantages of being first on the trail is that you become the spiderweb collector, until you reach a shelter which has emptied out, and the path ahead is cleared. With the heat of yesterday afternoon and all day today (it hit the high 70s), I saw loads of butterflies and one gorgeous yellow, black and blue one called the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (http://tabletopwhale.com/2014/08/27/42-butterflies-of-north-america.html). The route today led me along the banks of another river as it meandered through a gorge and threw itself over a waterfall at one point - Laurel Falls. It was truly gorgeous. I met quite a few day hikers out enjoying the sudden good weather. I kept on thinking of my dad, who died in 2013, and how much he would have liked it. He never had the chance to do anything like this - providing for six kids took all his energies, and by the time he was my age he'd had both hips replaced. I could just visualize him and how he'd be quietly taking it all in. The only issues for him doing the AT would have been getting Mass on Sundays, and packing some of that most wonderful of inventions, canned draft Guinness. But back to the river. It came to an end, or at least my meandering alongside it did, when the trail headed up the mountain for 2.6 miles and an ascent of over 1,700 relentless feet, in the glare of the sun. I thought it was the most ridiculously-named mountain (Pond Flats), until after two hours I came to the top, which was flat, and featured a very small but indisputable pond. It also featured a tent with two naked people disporting themselves who scurried into the tent as I came whistling by. "Good afternoon", sez I. One of them just waved at me. On the way down, I had to stop to tend to one of my toes; Lumberjack's Leuko tape came in handy again. (Last night I'd also used it to bandage cuts on my thumbs where my skin has been drying out.) I have now lost two toenails, one on each foot. I mean, who needs toenails anyway? When I am faced with an enemy, I rarely claw them to death these days. Too messy. The descent from Pond Flats dropped me onto a sandy beach at Watauga Reservoir. There were lots of people enjoying the water there. I just dumped some trash in a bin and sauntered by. Because of bear activity last year, several miles of the AT by the reservoir are closed to all but AT hikers (and even we can't stop or camp, and the Watauga shelter is closed). By now it was about 5pm and I was feeling very tired. But I made it through the closed section including crossing the Watauga Dam, and climbed up the hill at the end of the closed section for another mile and a bit, looking for a site on which to camp. I finally had to go off the trail up on a ridge and clear a reasonably level spot on top. I am definitely alone, and can see the reservoir and the lights of some town down in the valley. I'm at about 3,000 feet. When I picked the spot, I dropped my backpack and immediately set about cooking and eating, and only then in the sunset light with my hunger appeased, put up my tent. All is well. Tipperary