We accomplished Plan A! There was still lots of snow on the ground from the previous days snowfall, a good 6-7 inches. After a slow start though the sun came out and it was a glorious cold but clear sunny day. We left Black Bear resort at 8:50 and walked the 0.4 miles back down the road to rejoin the Appalachian Trail. As soon as we got on the trail we hit our first snowy obstacle, snow laden rhododendrons blocking the trail. Nigel had to do a lot of rhododendron bashing with his walking pole, I think he quite enjoyed it. As soon as he hit them the snow fell off and the trees bounced back up, clearing the way again. We were the first to walk this section of the trail in the snow, there were no other footprints until 2.7 miles in where the side trail coming up from Hampton joined the AT.
We passed Laurel Falls, a very impressive waterfall on a very rocky path which lead us around the river on a rocky ledge, impassible when the water is high. It was then uphill just over 1700ft to Pond Flats, and straight back down again. Quite hard growing and slow progress in the snow. At the bottom we reached Watauga Lake and Shook Branch Recreation Area where we bumped into our three German friends, Wall E, Milk Monster and Pillow (formerly Amazing Ant). It was great to see them again, we had not seen them since Low Gap shelter back at AT mile 43! We walked with them for a while up to Watauga Dam then split up for a bit but ended up staying at the same shelter, Vandeventer Shelter. We arrived at the shelter about 6:20pm. Pillow had overtaken us on the trail and arrived before us, Wall E and Milk Monster arrived about 15 minutes later. There were two other American thru hikers, Iron Man and Extra Miles also at the shelter, nice guys from New York and New Jersey. There was still lots of snow of the ground so we all slept in the shelter. Seven of us in a shelter for six, but it was fine.
It was a very cold night, probably around -3/-4°C. Our coldest night camping so far. The last four nights have been really cold but we managed to plan well and sleep indoors for three of them. For the first time I am writing this blog post the evening after. I usually always write them the same day but it was too cold last night. It was the first night we needed to wear our extra warm Buffalo mittens rather than just a thin pair of gloves. We were warm enough in our sleeping bags though with extra layers on.
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