AT & Dockery Lake Trails from Woody Gap to Dockery Lake

We had a small group of four hikers today. The weather was good with partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the 70's, but quite humid. Despite several days of rain, the trail was mostly dry and in good condition showing ongoing maintenance of both the AT and Dockery Lake Trail. There were a number of areas with a fair amount of rocks which are not unexpected on these well travelled trails. The big event of the day was coming upon two buck deer grazing 30-50 feet off the AT as we approached Miller Gap. They continued their grazing for at least 5-6 minutes as we took pictures and were amazed they were not spooked by our presence. There are numerous small creek and drainages crossing along this path, none too difficult to get across. We were unable to reach both Twin Falls and Martha's Falls due to heavy growth. dead fall, steep terrain and no obvious side trails to them. We did see Dockery Lake Falls, but extensive dead fall on and around these small falls made them unimpressive. We did see some summer wildflowers, but not a lot. We rate this trails as moderate in difficulty. It would be worthwhile hiking this trail again in the winter to find Twin Falls and Martha's Fall.