US 321 Hampton, TN - northbound mile 425

This post is from April 16, 2015.   The GPS data from today's hike can be found at:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/753336955

Today was a very pleasant 23 miles of slack packing under mostly sunny and warm skies. The following photo is of looking back southward at the mountains that I crossed during that terribly rainy weather two days ago. You can see that even on a beautiful day those nearly 6000 foot mountains produce weather that can make hiking difficult:

Once again looking westwards into Tennessee farmlands:

Here was a lovely old barn abandoned in the middle of the woods:

I came upon an interesting dilemma along with two other through hikers that were perplexed standing at the intersection you see between the blue and the red trails in the photo that follows. The blue trail was called the high water trail and the main AT trail was called the Laurel Falls Trail. It was not clear which  trail was the main Appalachian Trail as there were no white blazes visible at that intersection. Eventually using my iPhone Guthook application I was able to determine that except under conditions of very high water the main AT goes down on the red trail as you can see in the photo. Well with all the rain we've been having these were high water conditions so it was not clear whether or not the main route would be passable:

The following photos are shots of Laurel Falls themselves, as well as a couple of shots of the very very narrow lip of the trail that is the Appalachian Trail as it passes through this gorge. Indeed has the water been a 1 foot higher this would've been impassable;

After this Laurel Falls Gorge the rest of the hike consisted of a 2000' ascent and a corresponding 2000 foot descent down to Watauga lake which is another one of their Tennessee Valley Authority dammed lakes  made in the 1930s.

Here is a view of part of that man made lake:

I will conclude this post with a photo of the sign that was stapled to a tree near the trailhead when I finally reached Route 321, my destination. This shows that not everyone is enthused about the existence of the Appalachian Trail:

The land for this last section of trail was apparently taken by eminent domain and it looks like the family is not entirely happy about it.

I am feeling in good health strong and pretty optimistic about reaching Damascus, Virginia by Saturday night and exiting the trail about 40 miles north of Damascus, Virginia Monday night and flying home for a much needed break on Tuesday.