Date: 2004-05-25
From: Catawampas

To: Iron Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 24.4
Weather: broken clouds

In the morning, John stopped by. He built and owns this place. He¢s an out of work reporter at the moment. He had been building this place for years. Mostly he has just used it for family and friends. This summer he is experimenting with opening it to thru-hikers. It¢s been a mixed experience for him. Most nights this summer he has spent here. One time when he didn¢t, some youthful locals used the place as party central. I mentioned that there was a big bottle up in the outhouse pit. I also told him this place was great and greatly appreciated. My appreciation was backed up with a cash donation. He had been planning to take the sign down but after our talk his faith in thru-hikers had been restored. Hopefully it will all work out for him and us. It was fun to stay and talk but it was time to hit the trail.This was yet another gray day. The Handbook spoke of Laurel Falls and Laurel Fork Gorge. Some sun would be nice for places with names like that. There was even a high water bypass loop. That¢s exciting. Needless to say the gorge was for me. Laurel Fork Gorge was really pretty incredible, a narrow, deep gorge with a big water fall. The trail in the bottom skirts the bottom edge of the cliffs forcing the hiker to cling to the wall and do some tricky rock hoping in the water. Yea, that was fun.PoohAs nice as the gorge was it presented a Leave-No-Trace issue. Typically the need to dig a hole does not arise till about an hour or two down the trail for me. That is usually great because it helps distribute the use of the back country and limit the load on the shelter privy. Today, however, there is water and rock everywhere. Rock is hard to dig and LNT ethics tell us to be at least 200 feet from water. This just wasn¢t happening in a gorge and the situation was getting desperate. When the trail finally did veer away from the water it headed up fairly steeply through dense forest. Steep terrain did no good for squatting either. Finally, at a sharp switchback, the forest seemed to open up and flatten out just a bit off the trail. Pulling myself through the dense undergrowth on the edge of the trail landed me, in about ten feet, on the old trail/road. Well, that¢s not a good spot. Ten more feet and things were looking up until looking up showed me a ¢no trespassing¢ sign. Oh, come on. This was no where. I suppose they didn¢t want folks camping over there. Sorry, I dug my hole, made my deposit, buried it, brushed duff over the area and no one will ever be the wiser. Leave-No-Trace is great.It had been about 10 miles for the day when the trail came down a small road to US-321. For no particular reason this felt pretty exciting. Then the reason became apparent. Looking across the road my eyes landed on a large body of water bounded by a nice little picnic ground of green grass. Families were even picnicking. Hey, maybe the trail would go around the lake and I could go swimming. Some how the little picnic ground with the families didn¢t feel right for me. As the trail circled around the left end of the lake it became apparent there had been some recent brushing going on. Just a bit further on I greeted and thanked an older guy brushing out the trail. It is so nice to be able to thank trail maintainers in person.The trail led me to and from the waters edge but then I saw some young teens just ahead. They were wet! The lake was about 12 feet below the trail and the shore was steep and eroded. There was a big old tree with a big branch and a rope swing. Only one thought was on my mind. Time for a swim.The kids didn¢t all know each other. That was apparent by their interactions. The loud dominant guy, there¢s always got to be one, snidely offered me the rope swing figuring there was no way. Mid sentence he noticed my pack was on the ground and my boots were already coming off. He changed his tune to an amazed ¢You¢re gonna jump?¢ Well, they¢d have a hard time keeping me from jumping. The water was great. I wore my shirt the first time so it might get a little cleaner. The second jump was shirtless but included my pack towel for a little scrub-a-dub. The water was plenty deep and the bank continued down steeply even under water. The climb out of the lake was tricky and involved hauling up a rope while walking up a slimy muddy cliff, in a rappelling stance. Though the swim got me clean, the escape got me dirty again. The gang told me there was a place just a little further along where the water was easier to get to and would make clean up easy. I bade them a fond farewell and left on bare feet with boots in hand feeling quite exhilarated. It¢s also always gratifying to know some youthful perceptions of an older guy have been altered.Sure enough, not far was a large over camped area that sloped gently right down to the water¢s edge. There were two or three tents in the area. A couple of kids were fishing. I pulled up near them, washed, dried and booted my feet. We could see the others jumping off the rope swing. I had to get a picture and in hind sight though of handing one of my fellow jumpers my camera. It was too late now. The trail called.This was Watauga Lake. It was huge. The trail seemed to pass it for hours. Watauga Lake shelter was just a stones throw off the trail and made a nice place of some lunch. The trail wandered around the lake some more and popped out on a little paved road that lead across the dam that supplied energy to the hydro-electric plant below. It was hot under a thinly overcast sky. The trail stuck to the road a bit longer. It is amazing the difference tree cover verses pavement can make in the hot sun. It was a scorcher out there.When the trail did enter the woods it climbed steeply over a rocky knoll and then descended sharply to a road again. Across the road the trail reentered the woods. An older guy was heading out. He asked if this was the Watauga Dam Road. This was a perplexing question, especially after looking at the Handbook page. It didn¢t seem to think the trail should be crossing a road here. Then again it did suggest that the road walk after the dam should have been a good deal longer than it was. Hmm. Was that last section over the rocky knoll a new section? Did the trail used to just stay on the road and loop around the knoll? Good questions. Road walking is nasty but so was that last hunk of trail on a hot day. Anyway this guy was debating whether to make a cell call to a local hostel operator for a pick up. His knees were in need of a rest. My fingers were crossed that my body would hold up.It was a reasonable quitting time at Vandeventer Shelter. It was another of those nasty concrete block deals but it had a great location. Just behind it there was a nice rock outcrop with a wonderful view over, you guessed it, still Watauga Lake. I enjoyed lunch part 2 delicately balancing everything on this anything but flat little perch. A thirty something guy showed up from the spring. His stuff was already in the shelter. He asked me if a water bottle he was missing was back on the trail somewhere. It took a moment but I did remember seeing one of those purchased bottles of spring water leaning against a rock at an outlook maybe 3 miles back. He was disappointed but glad to have closure on his search. Some more water would have been a good idea for me too but the spring here was a half mile down a side trail. You get it, down. The next shelter was only 6.8 miles away. The sky had actually cleared, making for nice early evening sun light. The feeding frenzy had ended and the trail lay ahead.And so it was that Iron Mountain Shelter would be home for the night at the end of another long day, 24.4 miles. My shelter mates were a thru-hiker named Mack The Knife who¢s writings have entertained me in shelter journals of late, and three local hikers, Josh, Joel and Josh. These guys were probably around 20. We had a good laugh about their names all beginning with J and a good time just talking that night. Time to sleep.