2023 May/June Section Hike - Day 3 - Iron Mountain Shelter to Boots Off Hostel

May 31 - Day 3

Miles Hiked: 16

         We went to sleep last night paranoid about bears. This shelter has also had a lot of bear activity. Every little bump in the night prompted flashlights shined toward the bear canisters. Food intact, Sherpa and I packed up and headed down the trail. 

We did the same strategy as yesterday, hiked a bit and at our breakfast a few miles down the trail. 

No Lunch picture because I decided we should skip lunch to save time and just press on for the hostel. We were low on food and the one item I had left would take a bit longer to cook.  The Hostel has a shuttle into town at 6pm, and has lots of cold drinks and snacks.  This all made sense at the time, but with us out of snacks, and then skipping lunch...I was really dragging by the time we arrived. 

Along the way we saw a huge adult bear. It crashed through the brush running away from us. Biggest Bear I've seen on the trail though, definitely an adult. This section of trail south of Damascus really has a lot of bears. 

Lake Watauga. Beautiful. Sherpa apparently took his family Kayaking here a year ago, so it's a familar place for him. 

Long day, it was warming up since we were at a lower elevation and it was later in the day. Sherpa asked if he could hike ahead and go for a swim. Sounded like a great idea to me, so he took off. 

I plodded along, saw a deer just off the trail...and eventually caught up to him. He had time for a nice swim and was drying off when I hiked up. 

The hostel had an amazing shower....hot...and a nice wide pattern from their unique shower head. 

We went into town, filled up the food bag at the grocery, hit subway, and went back to the hostel. Fed, cold drink in my system, and I should have been feeling great. I wasn't. I was still super tired, could barely get my hammock set up. Definitely hit my limits today. 

I checked my "step count" at the end of the day. 50k Steps. Lol...long day.  Climbed into my hammock and listened to a musician near the fire who was quite talented.  Good to be clean, good to be fed, and good to be hanging in a comfy hammock.