Date: 2016-05-20
From: Black Bear Resort

To: Lake Watauga
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: overcast clouds

5/20 - Day Forty SixAnother good day and a big improvement over yesterday. The day started with me doing laundry. I was carrying a load of wet and dirty laundry that was last washed before Trail Days. It was ripe. As my clothes were washing I squared away my backpack and discussed the days plans with my crew as well as the Apple Dumpling Gang.The decision was made to slack-pack 13 miles from the trail head near Black Bear to Lake Watauga, then from there, walk four more miles to the first shelter and out of the "closed to camping" bear area by Lake Watauga. The folks at Black Bear would drop our backs off, this would give us 6 hours, plenty of time to hike and throw a few flies into the water by Laurel Falls. Hostels often have small back packs to use for slack packing, the Black Bear did... Mine was bright lavender! As we were getting into the Black Bear shuttle Justin bailed out and proceeded to throw up everything he recently consumed along with what appeared to be his stomach lining on the Black Bear's lawn. He is down with disease or in this case, possibly norovirous. He stayed at the hostel.So we made it to Laurel Falls and Mayfly and I broke our our fly rods as the Apple Dumpling gang kicked it. Why I like these kids is that they are not afraid to stop and smell the flowers. They may take a little longer to get to Maine, but my money is they get there.We fished for an hour. Mayfly caught one trout. He is a good fly fisherman and seems to catch at least one trout wherever we fish. I was happy with my casting, but ended up with no trout. We finally had to pull ourselves away as we still had a big climb and many miles to make.Slack packing is nice every once and a while as it enables you to make miles without beating up your knees, shoulders and back. One can really haul ass and we did. The hike took us 1,800 feet up and then 1,800 feet down and all around Lake Watauga. With only a mile or so to go the Apple Dumpling Gang, who were just 30 yards ahead of Mayfly and I, ran up on a bear on the AT. It hauled ass so fast we did not see it. They were excited as they did not see any bears in the Smokies.When we got to the pick up spot (or in this case where our packs would be waiting in the shuttle) we decided to dodge a massive rain storm and head back to the Black Bear for one more night and get shuttled back to where we left off in the morning. In addition we wanted to stay close to Justin as we were told he was "really" sick and was in a hotel. This plan worked as the rain began as we started back to the Black Bear with stops to a package store and Subway along the way. In Subway I saw Nemo. Nemo is good to see, he always has a good story about how he was almost ready to get off the trail, but manages to claw forward. We all agreed to share a four bed cabin, the challenge was between the Apple Dumpling Gang, Mayfly and myself there were 5 of us. The bed positions would be determined over a game of cards later in "the Bear Den". By the time we got to Black Bear it was pouring bad!!! We once again made the right decision as we can hike out dry in the morning. All night we sat in the Bear Den and watched one movie and then broke out cards. The kids did not have a chance, Blister and Voodoo are sharing a bed! The cards were in my favor tonight and I am solo in the bottom bunk in a large mattress. It's still pouring rain, I will sleep good tonight.