Watauga Lake, TN toward Damascus, VA

In the fall of 1999, during the first week of October, my brother and I set out on a planned four-day backpacking trip from Watauga Lake , TN to Damascus, VA on the Appalachian Trail. No fishing or misunderstanding this time. This was a backpacking trip. The trip would take four days and cover approx. 42 miles. I had spent the summer hiking all of the trails in Harper Creek and Lost Cove Creek Wilderness getting in shape.

We dropped a vehicle at "The Place", the Methodist Church run hostel in Damascus, and drove that afternoon to Watauga Lake. We hiked the mile or so to the Watauga Lake Shelter as darkness fell. We spent the first night there with "D.B.", a southbound thru-hiker who was the second thru-hiker of the season to make it this far south. He'd started from Mt. Katahdin in Maine on Memorial Day weekend and was now within a month of finishing. We gave some of our abundant food supply and candy bars to "D.B.", who seemed very happy with the gifts.

We spent the next morning climbing from Watauga Lake to the ridges that run toward Shady Valley. I could tell that the climb was taking more out of my brother than me. We came to Vandevender Shelter around lunchtime. After resting for an hour, we pushed on toward the Iron Mountain Shelter. We didn't quite get there. Late that afternoon my brother began to feel sick with flu-like symptoms. His son had been sick earlier in the week, so it looked like he was now coming down with the flu. We camped in an abandoned apple orchard near Turkeypen Gap for the night. The next morning, after almost getting run over by a deer stampede, we decided to cut the trip short. My brother was still feeling sick. Although I was disappointed, I knew we really didn't have a choice. He couldn't keep pace as bad as he felt. We would have to hike six miles to get to the highway, where we'd try to hitchhike to Damascus.

Water had been in tight supply on the ridge tops. There had been a drought since spring and most of the streams that were close to the trail were dry. We did find water near the Iron Mountain Shelter, and stopped to replenish. I stopped to change clothes and sent my brother on ahead of me, figuring I'd catch him at the first hill. Hills aren't his thing. I had made better time on every climb than he had made, so I expected to catch up with him in ten minutes or so. I didn't catch up with him for the next six miles. I don't know whether he began to feel better knowing the end was in sight or what. He covered that six miles like a man on a mission. I accused him of having "hill flu", but of course he denied it.

A hunter gave us a lift down the mountain to Shady Valley, where we promptly drank cokes and ate candy bars. A gracious general contractor stopped and gave us a ride all the way to Damascus, dropping us off within a block of "The Place". We spent a few minutes there, meeting a few folks and another Southbounder, before driving back to Watauga Lake to pick up my truck. My brother had begun to feel much better, and even suggested that we come back, spend the night at "The Place", and then finish the hike beginning the next day, sans some of our pack weight. We listened to the weather forecast call for several days of hard rain beginning the next day and decided it would be best to quit while we were ahead. The rain over the next couple of days turned out to be absolutely torrential. Again, a unique trail experience, but I'd learned a little more about distance hiking, and my appetite for a longer trip was growing.