Day 36 - 4/06

Daily mileage: 10.7
Total trail mileage: 423.5
Starting location: Dennis Cove (Kincora Hostel)
Ending location: Watauga Lake Shelter
Weather: clear and sunny all day. 75-90 degrees during the day

I am at
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=36.313934,+-82.129304

Yay, taking a half day today helped my feet not be sore anymore. I am
glad I did not hike very far. I got up, Camp Chair made breakfast for
everybody, and then I hung out for a while at the hostel. The people
there were pretty cool, and there were backpacker magazines going back
to the 70s (the advertisements in those were interesting). I checked
out the tree house (it was too much effort yesterday to walk up to
it), which is rather neat. I finally left at around 1:30. Kincora
was a great place to stay the night and to spend a relaxing morning.

After getting on the trail, I headed to the Laurel Fork Falls. There
were a lot of section hikers out today and many were amazed at the
fact that I am walking to Maine. One kid asked if he could follow me
because they were talking about Lord of the Rings and then I said my
trail name was Hobbot.

The trail to the falls was again a nice section. The stretch from
Roan Mountain to here has pretty much all been interesting. The trail
today went through large rock slabs, the waterfall was fairly
impressive, and the trail worked its way around the base of a cliff
right at the edge of the water.

Watauga Lake is lake number two for the trip. I got there in the
early evening though so no chance for swimming even though we
supposedly had record high temps for this time. Also, the shelter is
unfortunately away from the lake. But, the majority of the crew is
here tonight and they had a fire going before I strolled into camp
(and Camp Chair packed in beers).

Tomorrow is a very light day, so a couple of us might go back to the
lake before continuing on. Team DethMouse from Underhill (me,
Dethmarch, and Mouse) need to prep for the Tennessee Turnpike
Challenge. Everyone else is heading to Damascus at a different pace.

My watch battery died which is unexpected and unfortunate as I live by
my watch. Hopefully I can find somewhere in Damascus to get that fixed.

So far I have had two unexpected food cravings on the trail: coke and
oranges. Back home, I don't normally drink soda and don't eat oranges
frequently, so I am not sure why I picked those particular food
items. And then there are the expected food wants like pizza and
burgers, but that isn't a surprise.