day 24 - 04/03

i had a great night's sleep last night. no rain and i had my hammock set up so straight that it was really comfortable. the morning and early afternoon was a fairly easy hike. mostly just lots of quick up and downs, which made it easy to cover a lot of terrain fast. in the afternoon i hit this river and the terrain was so cool. i would hike along the river for a while and then climb and go thru these huge crevasses in the rock ledge. then i climbed down a really steep rock section to this amazing waterfall. i followed the river from there for a bit and at mile 18 at 14:00 (yes, i got an early start), i decided to take a 1 mile side trail to a saloon on the outskirts of hampton, tn. i had me a 1/2lbs cheeseburger with all the toppings and two beers for a whopping $7.75 and then hit the trail again at 16:00. i was sure glad i had that burger cuz right away i climbed 1800ft straight up and then straight down. it was kind of underwhelming cuz the mountain is called pond flats, but unfortunately there is no pond up there and there aren't and good views either. this is what a thru-hiker calls a pud (pointless-up-and-down). they can be kind of annoying. upon coming down a thunderstorm rolled in just as i was getting to watauga lake. i kind of booked it around the lake and made it to the shelter just before it really started to rain. i am the only one here tonight, which is a first for me. there is a stream just before the shelter, so i took advantage of the privacy and had a nice bath in the stream. with the side trip to hampton i actually did 28.2mi of hiking today and my body feels great. i actually did the last 7.6mi without my knee braces, which included that rather difficult pud. oh, and i passed mile 400 today! 26mi from mountaineer shelter to watauga lake shelter. 424.4 total.