Date: 2017-04-01
To: Black gap shelter
Miles today: 7.7
Weather: scattered clouds

At 6am, after only 3 hours of sleep, we rolled out of bed, grabbed a couple waffles from the hotel's breakfast, and hit the road again. We stopped for a quick haircut (last easy access to a barber for a while) on the way through Johnson City, NC. After passing Asheville and heading into the Smoky Mountains/Nantahala National Forest the gray clouds finally gave way to clear blue skies and the temperature rose to 65F. We stopped at the NOC, an outdoor center at NOBO (northbound) mile 137 of the AT as we drove though and stopped for a few minutes. I was a bit jealous of all the thru hikers lounging in the sun, already a couple weeks into their journey, enjoying some trail magic (any act of kindness given to a hiker) in the form of cookies and fruit. Hopeful the weather is as nice and some trail angels (people who provide trail magic) are around when I get there. We finished up the drive to Amicola State Park and arrived to find the place SWARMING with people, mostly families and day hikers out to enjoy Georgia's largest waterfall. We met up with my sister, who had driven up from Atlanta to hike for the day with us and then began our preparations. The approach trail begins with a stone arch and a sign proclaiming 2189 miles to Mt Katahdin, ME and was manned by a ranger who singled me out at someone who looked ready to hike to Maine. I signed in, NOBO hiker #1456 for 2017, weighed my pack (27lbs including 4 days of food and a liter of water), and at ~2pm started up the 608 steps that lead to the top of the falls. Personally I didn't think the steps were as bad as most accounts said they were, and we were soon up them and crossed the top of the falls. Thankfully the crowds thinned as soon as we got into the woods and soon it was just the three of us. My sister hiked with Ashley and I for ~3 miles before turning back towards her car.Along the way we saw several runners who were participating in the 70mi trail run race, which seems like a crazy idea, even to the guy hiking to Maine. We reached camp at ~630pm, Ashley and I setup our hammock and tent, made dinner and talked with a few of the other hikers, enjoyed the sunset which looked like a fire through the trees, and headed to bed promptly at hiker midnight, ready to catch up on some of the sleep we had missed the night before.PS For anyone reading this journal who is not a regular member of the hiking community. When hiking a long distance trail it's common to take a new name, a trail name. Trail names are earned while hiking, usually in relation to a humorous event or related to a distinctive feature of the person they describe. They're useful for a couple of reasons... in hiking you meet lots of people that you only see handful of times, so a distinctive name is much quicker to learn and the name (and the story they're derived from) gives you a bit of insight about a person when you meet them. A distinctive name is also useful for uniquely identifying a person... imagine along people if they've seen John who might be 50 miles ahead of you. Some examples of trail names from people I know back home are Faceplant, UTurn, Beer Angel, etc. I earned the name Crusher (give me a can of beer and I'll show you how) which is why I sign my posts with it. I earned that name with DCUL on a weekend hike on the AT 2 years ago, and may see if I earn a new name on this hike.