Woke up before sunrise so I could break camp and have time to fish before heading down the trail.

After striking out the day before, I tried to find some worms to use for bait.  I must have flipped over a dozen logs and twice as many rocks, but only found one worm.  And this little guy!

I climbed back to my fishing spot on a little ledge near the waterfall and fished for about an hour.  I finally hooked into something, but it threw the hook after a short 5 second tussle. Didn’t get to see what it was, but it had to be either a foot long trout or a slightly smaller smallmouth bass. The quest for my first Appalachian catch continues.

Soon it was time to hit the trail again, so I took a couple more pictures of the awesome spot and headed on.

After meeting up with Seeker, we hiked on down the trail.  The wind really picked up and we could hear limbs breaking and trees creaking  all morning.  We kept getting weather reports from passing hikers that a storm was coming, so we set our sights on a hostel at the end of the day about 19 miles away.

Later the the afternoon, the sky actually cleared a bit and the wind died down.  I found a nice mountain stream to fish and hung around for about a while to try my luck.

I got a hit with a fly and after a might tussle, was finally rewarded with my first catch of the trail!

He was quickly released to grow and fight another day.

Later down the trail, I came to a spot that had been intriguing me for about two days when I saw it on the guide book: Hardcore Cascades. I had been picturing a long set of roaring mini waterfalls or something similar. This is what I got:

What you think the Hardcore Cascades are going to be like…

What they are actually like…

this

After carefully passing the mighty Hardcore Cascades, I caught up with Seeker again and we followed the trail as it wound down off the mountain, trying t get to the Hostel before dark.

The trail eventually leveled out and brought us past an old barn sitting in a small clearing.

When we got near the road, we found a hand written note from a couple hikers we hadn’t seen in a few days.

So we Headed for Black Bear Resort. They had little cabins, (really just bunk beds and a light inside) for rent.  At $12.50/person, we couldn’t pass it up

The property also bordered a trout stream, so after a couple burgers, I took the fly rod out, but again didn’t have any luck.

Finished the night off with a movie in the common room before heading to sleep.