Date: 2005-04-12
From: Laurel Fork Shelter

To: Vandeventer Shelter
Miles today: 15.6
Weather: light rain

This morning was one of those days where it just took forever to get going. The clouds were very gray and I was pretty sure that it was going to rain. Steak 'n' Eggs had left very early; he is trying to make it to Damascus in two days to hitch up to Marion to catch a bus home for a few days. Stick left a few minutes before me, so I walked alone. It was along a stream, so it was very flat. Stick was sitting beside the trail waiting for me up a bit, where it took a sharp turn right to go up the Pond Flats. The trail that went straight was a blue blaze that led into town. If Stick wasn't sitting there, I would have ended up in town. Pond Flats has to be the most pointless 3 miles on the entire Appalachian Trail. The trail goes out of the way in the wrong direction to go up and over this insanely steep mountain. Once we got down to the road, going back in the right direction, it was getting towards lunchtime. Town was only two miles, so I talked Stick into hitching into town for lunch. It was starting to drizzle, so I was worried that we were going to have a tough time getting a ride, but a pickup truck picked us up within five minutes, and took us straight to Subway.After a footlong meatball sub and some pop, we walked down to the post office to send some stuff home. The clerk was at lunch, so we waited in the lobby and went through our packs to find stuff to send home. I also cancelled my cell phone, because they really pulled a number on me. I won't go into all the details, it will just get me mad again. Just so you all know, ALLTEL will lie through their teeth to get you to sign up. They will add stuff to your plan that costs extra without even telling you. Then when you go to cancel, they slap you with a $200 cancellation fee, and still charge you an extra month's bill on top of that. I do not recommend using Alltel at all. I ended up sending home my heavy pair of longjohns, the cell phone, a pair of shorts and a stuff sack. It was only about two pounds of stuff, but every little bit helps. By this time, it had started to rain steadily. We walked out to start hitching, without any luck at first. A bunch of cars passed us by. All of a sudden, we heard tires screetching and we looked up the road to see a car backing up in the middle of the road! Two cars had to swerve to miss it. The lady had stopped to pick us up. She was a real nice lady and took us all the way back to the trail. We walked around Watauga Lake and passed on the rope swing, since it was raining. After a brief stop at the shelter, we continued on and it started to pour. It only lasted a bit, but the temperature was dropping, making it more miserable. The climb up onto the ridgeline wasn't bad, but once we were up there, the rain became steady again and the wind was howling. It was too cold to stop and put on raingear, we just hiked as fast as we could to reach the shelter in our shorts. We made it to the shelter completely drenched. Odyessa and Whitee were already here. After a quick discussion, we found out that there is no water source anywhere near the shelter. So when the rain picked up again, we filled our bottles with the runoff from the roof. Not the most appetizing method, but that's what the filter is for. After a big meal, 3 young guys came in. They looked like they were right out of high school. I only caught one of their names; Metric. The temperature had really dropped, and I retired to my sleeping bag. It was a full shelter, and I was lulled to sleep with the sounds of Whitee snoring in my ear.