Day 39

Origin: Watauga Lake Shelter
Destination: Iron Mountain Shelter
Today's miles: 14.0
Total miles: 441.8

We woke up to a rain-free morning and hoped to get in as many miles as possible before the storms inevitably came. The sun was shining as we crossed Watauga Dam and received our first trail magic food since April 1 (other hikers rarely seem to go more than a week without something) provided by a dam worker called Safety Bob. I procured a delicious Little Debbie brownie (refined sugar at its tastiest) and an apple and we continued on our way. After two hours, the rain started but it never lasted long enough to soak us so we didn't mind it too much. For the first half of the day, we had nearly continuous views of the lake to our right.

The second half of the day was relatively featureless, so we just put our heads down and powered through. We arrived at the shelter at 4pm, early enough to push on if we had wanted to. The forecast was for rain so we stayed put, but if it had been clear I would have liked to have covered another seven miles to make tomorrow a little easier. As of now, we are hoping to get into Damascus, which is 26 miles away. It's a long day, but the terrain is some of the easiest we've had on the trail, and it's supposed to rain so we think we'd rather soldier on to get a dry place to sleep rather than be wet another night.

Here's the foggy view from inside the shelter tonight.