Explaining a picture becomes Appalachian Trail, Day One

This is the picture that we're (the royal "we") using as our profile picture on this here endeavor. Find it somewhat fitting as this picture was taken literally moments before I began hiking the Appalachian Trail on March 25th, 2006. That's me on the left and my friend/AT hiking partner, Dan Carter, on the right. We're at the Amicalola (which is a suprisingly difficult word to type/write and we've done it plenty of times.) Falls State Park visitor's center and his cousin (sister?) is taking the picture before the two of them drive off.

I can't completely explain the emotions going through either of us at that moment; "nervous" "anxious" and "excited" don't even begin to cover it. The main thought going through my mind was, "My god, I'm gonna piss my pants!" The transition from having thought about and preparing to hike the AT to actually doing it was intense, to say the least. In the visitor's center at the terminus of the 8.8 mile (mainly uphill) climb, we just wandered around thinking whatever thoughts one has mere seconds from embarking upon an attempt at a 2,175 mile thru-hike through the mountains, knowing full well that this will be a life changing experience which will unfortunately limit contact with friends and family but will allow plenty of time to do some of the things one enjoys most. That's one hell of a run-on sentence.

Dan and I somehow signed the register (I say"somehow" because I was shaking so much, I could barely write my name) and said goodbye to civilization. Straight out the back door of the visitor's center at Amicalola Falls is an archway over the trail head, announcing it as the approach trail to Springer Mtn. A sign states that it's 8.5 miles away, my guide book said 8.8 and since I aways gauged my mileage by my guidebooks, I always go with 8.8 (maybe they'd moved parts of the trail since the sign was put up?). Regardless, to the right of the building were the bathrooms which I desperately needed. We had our pictures taken by the sign (can I get a copy of that picture?) for the center's album and I made a beeline for the john. As the start of this hike crept closer, I hadn't really calmed much so after a few minutes in the last room I'd be in for a while, I just decided to up and do the thing. So out I went to find Dan and head up the trail.

Where is he? Took me a couple minutes to finally decide that he'd headed up the trail while I was in the shitter and I needed to play catch up. I knew I couldn't fault him for taking off, we'd never really talked about it and I hadn't asked him to stay and wait for me, so I started my Appalachian Trail hike alone.

So, to get ready for this hike, I'd done some pretty intense training. Or so I thought. I biked about 8 miles each way to work and back plus pretty much everywhere I went, I ran alot, did all sorts of exercises to strengthen my core muscles, and obviously went on a bunch of hikes alone and with others. I was ready to go! Physically this thru-hike was going to be no problem, right? Wrong. I don't know, maybe 10 minutes in, I'm wondering, "How has anyone made it up this fucking mountain alive?" and yes, I was actually swearing I was so overwhelmed. I had immediately realized what people meant when they said that walking 8 miles in Ohio would be nothing like 8 miles on the AT. I was constantly taking breaks to get my breath but wanted to catch up with Dan.

The trail had started out as a bunch of switchbacks leading up through sparsely leaf-ed trees, as it was late March, but turned on to what I think was a former access road. It was a hellacious climb and though I don't recall what it actually looked like, the ground was destroying my feet. This wasn't what I needed, more quick breaks from exhaustion and cursing myself for my underestimation of this hike. This access road kept going up until it finally came to....a parking lot? What the hell?

Huh, apparently all that climbing had gotten me to the top of Amicalola Falls, the tallest waterfall in Georgia, at 729 feet. Yea, way to be paying attention; I'd been so beaten down by the trail that I was hiking with my head down and didn't know where I was. Hiking with your head down kind of defeats the purpose. I walked to the bridge over the top of the falls and looked down. Man, I had gone a long way up. This was cool. I then turned and looked over my shoulder where the trail lead, up, up, up. I'd gone less than 3 miles, but needed a break so I relaxed on a bench on the bridge. And wait a minute... 729 feet? For reference, the Terminal Tower is 708 feet tall, but I had to get up to nearly 3,800'. I'd started at 1,700'. Do the math. Only later would I learn that nearly everyone else was struck at how difficult this approach trail was, which helped.


Although from my vantage point, I couldn't see the beauty of the falls, I had a great view of the land below and the mountains on the horizon (except that everything was kinda of brown from the receeding winter. As a friend would later say, "It looks like the damn desert."). Never once on my thru-hike did I consider dropping out, but as I sat there, I contemplated how different the reality of this undertaking would be from my fantasy. I knew everything would work out if I just kept at it. I heaved my unbearably heavy onto my back and took off up towards Springer.

After I had left the top of the falls, I'd passed some shelters with people hanging out and eating but didn't really want any long breaks, and since none of them had seen Dan, I just kept going. I finally caught up to him on the summit of Springer, freezing, guess he'd been there about an hour or so. Oops. I knew he'd probably be faster than me, but by that much? It was 8+ miles, but damn. Alright, well, we got our pictures taken (again, where is it?), signed the register, chatted with the ridge runner and started down another 2.5 miles to our destination for the day, Stover Creek Shelter. By the way, the summit of Springer Mountain is the official terminus of the Appalachian trail.

The first blaze of the AT and a plaque

About a mile down from the summit is a parking lot that allows one to skip the approach trail, and instead opt for a hike of less than a mile to the top, and a mile back down. We here have no opinion on whether including the 8.8 mile approach trail is necessary to a thru-hike, but we're glad we did it, even if we cursed it and hated it the whole time we were on it. There was a former thru-hiker in the parking lot taking a survey of the current ones for his masters thesis or something. I figured with only a mile and a half to go, yea I'd do it. While standing there for a couple minutes, the day's 10 miles of ascent and descent all seemed to take its toll at once. When I finished with his questions, I could barely move I was so sore; my legs, ankles, feet, hips and groin were all letting me know they didn't like me. The exertion and cold were wearing me out - I know it's Georgia, but it was late March and Springer at 3,782 feet and the parking lot not far below were freezing and windy. (sidenote: the guy with the survey called me a couple months ago and we finished his survey, apparently I was somehow last on his list to call back. Not sure that's a good thing. Awesome.)

At the shelter, we met up with 3 guys on Spring Break from Auburn out for a section hike who I'd run into earlier. Surprisingly, I was able to carry on conversations with them that didn't reference Bo Jackson. Staggering in amongst the random boy scouts, weekenders (it was a Saturday), and section hikers were 4 thru hikers. 3 of them were, for different lengths, somewhat on our schedule so we saw each other a lot; Scott (to become "Scoot") and Dubs (don't remember his real name, and even if I did, that's not what I know him as) were a couple of friends from South Carolina who pitched a tent and hammocked, respectively and Casey ("Cupcake" from the way he talks with his girlfriend) also put up his tent. Dan, myself and someone who's name I can't come up with (Travis?) shared the shelter.

During dinner, Scoot spilled his meal right next his tent after cooking it. To this point, Dan and I had felt that we aren't nearly as "professional" hikers as some thru-hikers and it was a relief to see someone else screw up, especially one that seems to know what he's doing. Well, during the night I had to use the bathroom. And not number 1. Must have been 20 degrees out there, and the fog - couldn't see with my headlamp on and it was 3am. There's no toilet obviously, so I'm going behind a tree. I've never spent a night outside in Georgia, so I don't know what's crawling around here, or if any animals are out in this cold. I just want to get back to bed. So as I'm doing my business, I realize that I've made a (common, apparently) mistake. In my haste, I hadn't played the angles right and was now micturating in my boxers, and as I said, 20 degrees out here.

Well I finished and got back to bed after changing my clothes, falling asleep with endless thoughts running through my head. Day one, we had gone 11.3 miles (2.5 into the AT), pretty damn good.

(If anyone there has pictures of any of this, send them along, they'd be greatly welcomed)

(I started out trying to explain how the picture of me and Dan starting the AT, but ended up pretty much describing the whole day. Expect a lot of that. And doing this thing here is in no way similar to the AT, so you know what, I just wasted 1600 words.)