We had another intruder last night. This time thankfully it was just a small mouse that scurried away without any bellowing or spear chucking.
We hiked down and along Watauga Lake and across the Watauga Dam. It’s another TVA dam and lake. It looked pretty nice and had a small beach (that was kind of flooded).

Watauga Lake beach

Too bad it was cold again here. No swimming today for sure. Excitingly, they had flush toilets and trash cans (both of these are very exciting to thru-hikers).

Crossing the dam

The other side of the dam

We then ascended a bit and hiked on relatively easy and nondescript terrain for most of the day. We had a view of the valley from above.

Watauga Lake and valley

We hiked about 20 miles for the day and made a stealth camp past the Iron Mountain shelter. The trail was very empty, I assume a lot of other thru-hikers went to Trail Days. Tomorrow we approach Damascus and plan to camp around 5 miles outside of it so we can get in to town early Monday. Just about through the Southern Appalachian states…wow.

Vital stats :
Mood – chilling good
Physical state – solid good
Smell – good thing it’s cold down here, it keeps the moldering General Tso’s smell mostly contained
Song stuck in my head – Madonna’s Like a Virgin as covered by the Insane Clown Posse