All in a good days walk – Part 2.
The following has been transcribed directly from the journal that I kept while hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT).
Tuesday, April 25, 2000
7:00am alarm goes off-more jokes about not going and everyone is comparing the weight of their packs-Donny seems to have the heaviest. So here we go. We had breakfast, laughed and procrastinated about leaving. It’s 9:14am and still foggy. We will not go see the falls due to the fog. We have our picture taken in front of the lodge.
9:30am – 46 degrees, foggy with light mist. The hike is on! Stopped at the sign to mark the approach trail and took some pictures.
Hiking starts off easy for the first few steps but quickly develops into sharp inclines. The packs are heavy-my shoulders are burning after only an hour or so on the trail. We take breaks every hour or so and the group quickly is dividing into 3 groups of hikers with varying paces. Mike and Skye can really belt out some good strides-but it is equally hard on all of us.
We climb Frosty Mountain which takes you from 2,700 feet to 3,350 feet in 1 mile of uphill climbing. We all stopped on Frosty (we didn’t know where we were yet) and tried to guess how far we came: 3.7 miles so far. At this point we ran into a father and daughter who are going all the way to Maine. They just finished 200 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail for a train-up. He confirms that we are on Frosty (found out that he hiked the entire AT before). Next up is Nimblewill Gap where there lies a memorial for a man whose plane crashed near this spot in 1968-the memorial was placed in 1996 upon removal of the plane.
After Nimblewill begins a 750 foot climb-extremely steep over 3/4 of a mile which leads up Black Mountain. We crest that mountain and head right back down 500 feet at which we begin our final ascent of Springer Mountain and the beginning of the AT.
The Appalachian Trail begins atop Springer Mountain, Georgia. There are many ways to Springer, but we chose the most difficult, a grueling 7.3 mile hike from the Amicalola Falls Lodge to the southern Terminus (Springer). My reasoning-if you are going to walk all these miles on the trail, why would you want to leave out a mere 8 more miles? Really made you appreciate and actually become a bit apprehensive once you reach the AT.
Wow, what a climb-steeper than Black Mountain with a series of switchbacks that made me stop very often for a breath. Shoulders are smoked. Finally hit the crest of Springer-fogged in and can’t see any of the view. We take more pictures, meet a few people, and sign in on the visitors log (the visitors log is just a spiraled notebook which is hidden inside of a large boulder on top of the mountain. There are similar books in the shelters along the way also). We start on a long descending hike. on the way we stop at the Springer Mountain Shelter for some lunch. The shelter, like most along the trail, is a 3 sided wooden house measuring about 10×20 feet. Lunch for me is hard salami and crackers. I notice that there are mouse turds on the beams of the shelter and there is a small loft in this one. Someone is sleeping up there.
4 more miles to our campsite for the night-in between 2 creeks. The shelter at Stover Creek was full so we continued to hike until 5:30pm or so. We saw a nice spot of fairly flat ground and we set up our tents, filtered water for everyone out of a fast running creek and cooked dinner: Stove top stuffing and minute rice with some dehydrated chicken tossed in. Also had some tang and apricots.
Bed time at 8:30pm. Clouds started to show a little sun and blue sky but still cloudy when we went to sleep. It is 45 degrees.
* Note: Dehydrated chicken-we made the first batch maybe 3 weeks ago and it turned moldy on me. I suppose 2 weeks is a good planning time for use. At least I found out how to tell when it is bad: fuzzy green mold.
Total today: 11.6 miles
** Something to note: There are many different ways to compute mileage on the AT but only one that counts: “how many miles you actually walked on the AT itself.” However, that will not be the total amount of miles that you have actually walked. Miles add up when you go off trail to towns, side trails and shelters. In my account, the total mileage will be what we walked, not including any extra miles for water or shelters.
