This day was an epic day. Not epic in miles hiked, calories burned, steps taken or even sights seen. It was epic because my family was there as a embarked on a ~2200 mile hike on the Appalachian Trail (AT) from Georgia to Maine. My Dad and Mom, brother (Wade), sister in law (Jodie), niece (Jadyn), nephew (Skyler), cousin (Pam) and cousin in law (Larry) all trekked up to the top of Springer mountain. Larry, also hiking the trail, and I signed in on the hiker log book. There were some 400+ people who already started ahead of us this year. I wondered how many of them where still on the trail. We met a thru hiker (Grasshopper) while signing in. He thru hiked the trail before a few years back. He’s 71 years old. He Informed us we’re supposed to check in “officially” at Amicalola Falls State Park. Out of the 6 books I read on hiking the AT none of them mentioned this. We finished our first mile of the AT from the parking lot to the top of Springer mountain and back and climbed in our trucks and headed to Amicalola Falls.
We got out and noticed there were people everywhere. I’ve never seen this many people at Amicalola Falls before (or any other trail heads for that matter) There were buses and RVs and people camping out everywhere. We went in to find out where we were supposed to sign in at. We were directed to a special room where two rangers greeted us. We signed in, got our numbers, and attached our official AT thru hikers tags to our bags . Then we had to go through a safety orientation of sorts. They showed us a big map of the trail in GA, where water is located, camps sites, shelters, etc. They actually recommended no camp fires. Huh? But I love camp fires! They said these days people cook on portable burners and besides after hiking all day you won’t feel like making a fire. The best way to stay warm they said is get in your sleeping bags and get in the shelter or your tents. They said often times people get fires going and leave them burning all night and or don’t put them out before leaving the campsite. Which can start forest fires. They also recommended taking a few days off the trail this week as it was going to get down into the teens. They were concerned we’d try and camp through too cold of temps and not want to return to the trail the next day. We thanked them for their time and information and went on our way.
Everyone wanted to see the Amicalola Falls so we headed up the road a bit to do so. The weather was beautiful. A little chilly but really nice. It was hard to believe it was going to drop down into the teens in a few days. But that’s GA weather for ya. We checked out Amicalola Falls, took some pics, and hoped back in our trucks to get some dinner before heading back to the cabin to rest for our big start tomorrow. #HikeForHope
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