Happy Independence Day! What a great way to spend it, too, hiking the granddaddy of all the American long distance trails! Rockhound, his dad, and I had a great hike on a beautiful section of trail today. The Big Branch River was an absolutely wonderful spot to hang out and have an extended lunch. We were joined there by Chief & Jethro.

There are lots of roads in the area and we passed a whole bunch of people out for day-hikes. Many of them were ridiculously self-absorbed, neither stepping off the trail or waiting for us to step aside before walking through! Oh well, proximity to people does tend to breed contempt.

I can hear a few fireworks in the distance, but there are no good viewing spots where we’re camping tonight. This is compounded, also, by the rain clouds moving into the area. The campfire we have going at the shelter will have to be enough for tonight.

There was a neat spot at the junction of the White Rocks Cliff Trail and the AT where a huge collection of stacked rocks have been built up. Enough so that it seemed like a fairyland for about 50 feet of trail. This is in a cool section of forest where the hardwoods have been replaced by straight, bare pines. The bottom 30′ of the trees are bare and the next generation of forest in the form of 2′ high pines is starting to grow in from below.