Date: 2010-03-30
From: Dennis Cove Road

To: Camped north of Wilbur Lake Road
Miles today: 14.0

"I should very much like to know," continued Barbel, in an inquiring tone of voice, "what the old man has on his conscience that he looks as he does, and lives up there on the mountain like a hermit, hardly ever allowing himself to be seen."                           - Heidi by Johanna Spyri OK. I freely admit it. I am a flatlander, born and bred. I never even really saw a mountain until I was an adult. I had a lot of trouble wrapping my head around the concept.When I was a child and read Heidi, I picked up on the passage about Grandfather living ON the mountain. I thought that meant "on the very top of the mountain.". So I was confused when later on Peter and Heidi were going up higher on the mountain to tend the goats. How could they go UP when Grandfather lived ON the mountain? The pictures I drew of a mountain were always of a perfect triangle of purple with a summit of white. Sometimes I drew a house at the apex. Since the house looked unstable, I would add stilts on the sides to keep the house upright.   Clearly I was missing something.I was reminded of this when I looked at the elevation profile on the map of my first climb of the day. The climb up Ponds Flat went right on up, came to the top, and went right on down the other side at the same angle.Bob had answered the phone and shuttled me up to Dennis Cove Road. We finished our chat, then we headed off, he to a day of trail work, and I to a day of trail walk.The day had been forecast to be partly sunny, but it was still cloudy when I started off. After a while I passed Laurel Falls and continued on downstream.I mistakenly started up the blueblaze trail to the shelter instead of downhill, following the white blazes, but soon figured out my mistake and continued on my way.After a couple of footbridges the path turned sharply and headed up the steady climb up Ponds Flat. Fortunately the trail was well switchbacked. For brief moments the sun would appear and then disappear. I could see Hampton off below me, and at one point I could hear music from what sounded like a carillon of bells. It was just after 12:00, so maybe it was to mark noon.A snack on the top of the mountain (and, no, I didn't need stilts to remain upright) perked me back up. The sun kept trying to peek through the clouds as I marched on down the other side.The trail crossed the road and led around large Watauga Lake. A swimming area and beach was on one side with a building (restrooms) off to the right. But the trail went to the left, and so did I.After following the margin of the lake for a while the trail turned in and went over a few rises and passed the shelter. I stopped in and had a quick supper. Since there was still some time before sunset, I packed up and was about to head off when another thruhiker, Subby, showed up. We chatted for a bit, then I set off to make some progress before finding a spot to spend the night.Down and along the lake and across the dam - a TVA dam - I went. The lengthening shadows reminded me that I didn't have much time left. I crossed a road where there were some spots that other people had camped before, but I never like to camp next to a road so I started uphill, thinking to shorten my climb the next day. Unfortunately it was too steep there to make camp, and when it reached a relatively level area, there wasn't much on either side of the trail, just a steep slope. The sun was dropping when I found an area that was wide enough to hope to arrange a place that had a level spot large enough to put my sleeping bag AND had a place to hang my bear bag (to keep my food from the bear, not keep a bear in!)Practice must help since I got the line up in a tree - in the right spot - after only a couple of attempts. But it turned out that the level spot was not so level. I selected another spot 30 feet away, but it wasn't much better. By this time, even though there was still light in the sky, the sun was already down. It would be full dark soon. So I spread out my bedding and used my pack to try to build up the low spot.As the last border of orange faded to black, I snuggled into my sleeping bag. I was content here on top.