Day 34 Progress

Writing from my tent while listening to the rain.


I slept quite well in the shelter last night. I was pretty tired so I mostly slept through the night. We woke up to our alarms at 6:45 and had eaten breakfast and packed up our stuff by 8. We were planning to hike over 25 miles so the slightly early start was necessary. 


Most of the morning was drizzling rain so we had our rain gear on. With the weather and the lower elevation of the trail we didn’t have a ton of views. Just easy miles. We passed a few waterfalls and streams in the morning. 




We stopped for lunch at Moreland Gap Shelter just before noon. Pyro, the guy who we met at the shelter last night, caught up and we talked to him for a while during lunch. 


After lunch we kept moving and had some views of the surrounding mountains before dropping down into the valley where the flowers have started blooming. 



Eventually we hiked down to Laurel Fork Falls, a very impressive waterfall for a relatively small stream. 



The last leg of the day was up and over Pond Flats Mountain. The 2,000 feet up and 2,000 feet down over 6 miles were the hardest part of the day but we still covered it quickly. On the way down we could see Watauga Lake. 




We hiked a few miles along the shore of the lake before finding a campsite and setting up. In total we hiked 25.5 miles, our biggest day yet by far. The weather was much better than expected and we barely got wet all day. Tomorrow’s weather has also cleared up so we should be more or less dry all the way to Damascus and the start of Virginia. 


Tomorrow we plan to hike 23-28 miles depending on how we are feeling. The trail is very flat in this section so the miles are much easier. However, 28 miles is still a lot so if we are hurting we may take the shorter 23 mile day. 


It will rain a little tonight but the temperatures are supposed to be in the low 50’s so we don’t have to worry about being cold. 


I’m headed to bed to rest up for tomorrow.


Goodnight,

Walker 


If you want to follow Tyler or Spencer, here are their logs as well:


Tyler: https://tylerat2024.blogspot.com/?m=1


Spencer: https://www.instagram.com/baxter.bound?utm_source=qr&igsh=MWx4MzRqa3M4dGk3Mw==

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