Date: 2006-03-01
From: Amicalola

To: Amicalola
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Monday, 2-27-06. 18 degrees. AT practice. Arkaquah Trail to the summit of Brasstown Bald, the highest mountain in Georgia, and back, 12.2 miles. (Note to anyone hiking the AT who wants to summit the highest mountain in Georgia too: at Chattahoochee Gap on the AT, take Jack's Knob Trail and back, 9.0 miles).Plenty of time to stop and look at sights along the path.Just before the end of the first big up, there's a fallen-away section of bark on an 8-inch oak trunk. The remaining bark and bare spot make a wolf face. One eye is well-defined. The other only suggested -- a blank spot on the cambial layer. Between the eye and the blank spot, a long nose. A black mouth.Streaks run down from the nostrils. In today¢s cold, the wolf¢s nose is running just like Amoeba¢s.Amoeba stops at the top of the first climb, not because she¢s tired but just to enjoy the views and solitude.Zero wind. In today's calm, even though the temp is only 18 degrees, the air feels warmer than yesterday.While ascending, she¢s eaten a whole inner package of rye krisp.At the top 2 peanut butter and cheese crackers.A slug of watered-down gingerale. Her body likes the sugar, the ginger, the acidity and the light carbonation of that drink. It¢s got kick without making her shaky like caffeine, it¢s thirst-quenching without being nauseating like plain water sometimes is.Amoeba ambles along the ridgeline.A rustling sound. Unseen critter hidden in a thicket of mountain laurel.Droopy rhodo leaves, protected from temps in the teens by rhodo antifreeze. Soon after the temperature rises, those leaves will perk right up. Note for Amoeba: when you get home, look up rhodo antifreeze.Amoeba walks past icicles. She¢s not paying attention to where the trail goes. It switchbacks uphill to the right. But she walks a well-trodden path straight ahead, towards more icicles. Quite a few other people have made that same mistake. Dead end.Retracing her steps, she finds that switchback and heads up the trail toward the top of a little bump.In the distance a woodpecker drills away at a tree, drilling reminding her of something Stumpknocker said: when you find holes pecked in a circle all around a tree trunk, that¢s the work of a yellow-bellied sapsucker.11:30 A single plump dried apricot right on the path. Amoeba picks it up, dusts it off and pops it in her mouth. Tart, sweet and sulfurous.For lunch, Amoeba likes to stop just shy of a summit or just after a summit. Here, she¢s a little shy of the summit. There¢s a flat rock to sit on. A sunny spot in the middle of mountain laurel and rhodo. Lunch is roasted Vidalia onions, red peppers, yams and garlic, in olive oil, salt and pepper, flavors blended. A piece of roast beef sandwich left over from yesterday. 4 peanut butter and cheese crackers. M-m-m. Well-fed, not overfed.After a little while, she hikes out to the parking area, and then up 0.6 to the summit, where there is a couple with 2 young children. The parents tell Amoeba how nice it is in the summer when you can get a ride from the parking area to the summit.She lingers at the summit, enjoying the views and photoing Hiawassee and the lakes, Blood Mtn and Neels Gap.1:40 Descending, feeling really good.Usually Amoeba doesn¢t repeat a trail but today she¢s repeating yesterday¢s hike. Near the end there¢s a muddy spot that she slipped on yesterday, and fell. It¢s a steep slick at the tail of a switchback where the switchback is changing direction. She recognizes it and says to herself. ¢OK I¢m going to plant the poles and be really careful.¢ Again she falls in that exact same spot. A new set of muddy clothes.She could keep going up and down over that place til she figures out what she is doing wrong and how she needs to change to get over those kinds of slicks without falling. But she just hikes on.On yesterday's hike they collected all the empty soda and juice bottles along the trail. Today she¢s packing out the rest: paper, packaging and other litter.Tuesday, Feb 28,2006Amoeba has spent the night at the Super 8 in Dahlonega. King-size bed. Long soak in the bathtub. She resupplies at the grocery store.Then she drives over to the Smith House to meet Chief, Xmas, Xmas¢s brother Leonard and Stumpknocker for lunch.A lively group. Conversation is stories, banter, and friendly put-downs.Amoeba notices Stumpknocker eyeing the platter of fried chicken. She picks up the platter, takes a piece of chicken, passes the platter to Leonard, who passes it to Xmas, who passes it to Stumpknocker. Poor Chief gets the platter after Stumpknocker. Nothing on it but a few crumbs.Stumpknocker takes a photo of Chief¢s disgruntled face, Amoeba takes one of the crime scene (see photos).Gotcha's. Prank-playing. Stumpknocker always wins at pranks. There¢s no sense trying to beat Stumpknocker at pranks.But card games? Can anyone win against Stumpknocker at cards?Amoeba doesn't know yet.Why?The 4 times Amoeba and Stumpknocker have played cards, Amoeba's been the happy winner of more than $400,000 and Stumpknocker's thrown in the towel saying ¢Boy did that game suck.¢But has Stumpknocker been really trying?No.Sure, he acts like a person who wants to win. He¢s the scorekeeper. He draws a scorecard, putting his name in a Winner¢s column (and his opponent¢s name in a Loser's column). He sets the rules: we¢ll play Gin the way my grandmother-in-law played it. He puts on that pouty look if he starts to lose.Don't be fooled. It's an act.In her heart of hearts, Amoeba knows he's been letting her win.Evidence?Silly. You don't have to look beyond the Shoester journal-counter affair to know Stumpknocker's capable of cooking up and hatching long-running sophisticated plots.He's got gleeful imagination. He's got patience.Someday, in the card game department, he'll pounce.Still, at least right now, Amoeba's not in a bad position. If she ever collects more than the 26 cents he¢s paid so far, there¢s the funding for her next decade of section-hiking. If she doesn¢t, there¢s the funding for her losses after Stumpknocker decides he¢s gonna really play.Wednesday, March 1, 200615.2 milesAmoeba has summitted Springer twice, but has never hiked the approach trail. Today she'll hike the approach trail to Springer with Stumpknocker as he embarks on his 2006 journey from Amicalola to Belle Isle Newfoundland. She¢ll return solo to Amicalola along the same trail. From Amicalola she'll drive to Hiawassee to meet ZigZag."Menu" breakfast at Amicalola Lodge. Not enough guests to put out the buffet. Poor Stumpknocker. He¢s been looking forward to the breakfast buffet, his last big meal before all those other big meals he¢s gonna eat on the trail.In the dining room, hello and goodbye for now to thruhiker Steve from Grand Rapids. Good luck, Steve.Hello to Shane and Greg from NH who are starting their thruhike today. Greg¢s father drove them to Amicalola all the way from NH.Start 8:10 Temps in the 50¢s. A little windy at first, but soon the wind dies. Stumpknocker¢s got a great day to start his 3500-mile hike. Weather forecast for the next couple of days: more of the same.Trail is soft underfoot and dry.Stumpknocker says looking ahead to this hike is one of the longest anticipations he¢s had. Usually he¢s more spontaneous about deciding what he¢s going to do. He prefers the spontaneity.Hello to Indy from a little town north of Muncie. Indy is starting a thruhike, he¢s never backpacked or slept out before. Some family matters may affect the duration of his hike. He¢ll hike to Gatlinburg. Before continuing on he'll touch base with his family.Hello to Hit and Miss, a young couple who are flip-hiking over 2 seasons. They started at Katahdin in late Sept 2005 and finished Nov 2005 at Little Gap PA. They ran into lots of rain and lots of snow. Their friend Greg climbed Katahdin with them last year. This year he¢s doing the same at Springer.Hello to Jim and Gary from Toledo Ohio out for 45 days.Though Amoeba is hiking faster than usual, Stumpknocker is hiking faster. He pulls ahead and disappears from sight.Amoeba crosses the top of a hill where there¢s a charcoal grill and some old concrete footings. After this, she¢s stops concentrating on hiking. She zones out. Hiker hypnosis.After a while, a blue blaze pulls her out of the trance.Where am I? Still on the approach trail or now on the Hike Inn trail? The approach trail is blazed blue. Is the Hike Inn trail blue too? If she¢s now on the Hike Inn trail and continues, she could lose a couple of hours.Some of Amoeba's worst experiences on the trail have been when someone else is expecting her to be somewhere and she can¢t get there and can¢t get in touch with them to explain why.Stumpknocker is expecting she's right behind him. He's expecting to say goodbye on Springer and then hike on. She has no way to get in touch with him to tell him not to wait.Neither of them is carrying a cell phone and even if they were, there's no signal here.Amoeba turns around and hikes back up the hill to where that charcoal grill was (the last place where she remembers being conscious of her surroundings). Where is this place on the map? Frosty Mountain?Along the way there are no intersections, forks or signs. She must still be on the approach trail.Retracing steps has wasted a lot of time. Fretting, almost panicking.Soon she comes to Nimblewill Gap (her personal Bermuda Triangle), the place she parked at last summer after that harrowing nighttime drive in the Honda over rutted and washed-out Rte 28. She'd thought she had parked off Rte 58 at Three Forks by a white blaze on the AT. In reality, as she discovered when daylight came, she was parked at a blue blaze, with no idea where she was. She wasn¢t going to be able to meet Slow and Easy and Flex on the AT as promised and she had no way to tell them that. They would be at Three Forks waiting and waiting for her, wondering what to do.That day was the low point of last year's hike.Now the same predicament except this year a little better because at least she knows she¢s on the approach trail.Amoeba: I¢ll follow the trail up the next mountain. If it's Black Montain, then I should soon come to Black Gap Shelter and if I find that, I¢ll know for sure where I am and I won't be that far from Springer.10:35 Hello to a young woman who hiked out yesterday, spent the night on Springer and is going back today.Black Gap Shelter. Phew, oriented again. Sign the register.A nice group on top of Springer. 2 very young NOBO men. Their families are there. Mom and Dad and younger sister and brother. The Mom and sister are fighting back tears.Many Sleeps is there, and Stumpy. Many Sleeps so named because that was the Native American way of measuring distance. He¢s the caretaker at the shelter. Goodbye, Many Sleeps. Goodbye, Stumpknocker.12:15 coming down from Springer, Hello again to Indy. He says encourage everybody who¢s behind me. What a nice thing to say.Hello again to Hit and Miss and Greg. Greg will stay with them overnight. Hit and Miss are from Inlet, NY, about 2 hours from Syracuse. They¢ve hiked in the Adirondacks. They¢ve left fierce winter weather at home. Here they've got perfect hiking weather, overcast 60¢s. In Georgia March has come in like a lamb.Hello again to Shane and Greg. Greg¢s dad is on his way back to NH in a car. Shane and Greg on foot.Hiking from north to south you get the pleasure of greeting some NOBO¢s more than once.Hello to smiling upbeat Cedar Moe, wearing a heavy-looking pack and carrying a thick cedar hiking stick wrapped with tape. Cedar Moe is from Pigeon Forge TN. He stayed last night at the home of a couple who he met last year when they got married in Pigeon Forge. They live near the AT in Georgia. When they heard Cedar Moe was planning to thruhike this year, they told him they would give him a good send-off. He spent last night with them. Now he¢s headed to Katahdin.As they are saying goodbye, Cedar Moe takes Amoeba¢s hand, thanks the Lord for sending her into his path today and prays for her.1:45 Hello to 2 women. The first one says she's out for a few days, Amoeba doesn¢t get her name. The second one is Scout from Chapel Hill NC. Amoeba gets a good photo of her. (Scout, I hope putting it on TJ is OK with you, if it isn't tell me and I'll take it down).At the Bermuda Triangle parking area, hello to Boulder from Portland ME. He hiked a little bit with triple-crown Apple Pie, who Amoeba met last year up in NH. Boulder¢s been getting his hiking advice from 3 people in MA. Then 3 more thruhikers, one from NC and one from IL.By the edge of the trail, grass still has whitish tips but is definitely green towards the core of the tuft, green about 1 12 inches. On the forest floor, a few green leaves poke through last year's oak leaves. Spring is arriving in the mountains. In the lowlands, it's farther along. there, daffodils are out.2:10 For the third time today Amoeba walks through the clearing with the charcoal grill and concrete footings.Hello to Crispy and Janetor, hiking north to Watauga Dam, then will start the PCT. Look for Lawn Ornament. She¢s hiking the PCT this year, raising money for the Heart Association.Young man longish dark brown hair, starting a thru, no trail name yet. Sorry I didn¢t get your name.Another young man from New Jersey, Mike.Out at the Lodge. Another hello to Dana from the Visitors Center.Amoeba starts out for Hiawassee.Driving past Neels Gap was that person in the Walasi-Yi parking lot Laurie Potteiger (Mountain Laurel)? Amoeba turns the car around and drives back, getting to say hello to Laurie just before she enters the woods on the trail up Blood Mtn. Hi to Dick too. Laurie and Dick will stay at Freeman tonight and come out tomorrow.In Hiawassee Kups and Kones (internet access) is closed for the season but Amoeba stops a little further on along the same road at a computer place. Its owner lets her access email.Happy reunion with Ron and Sam at the Hiawassee Inn. Great to hear about their winter trips to Paris, the little place on the Riviera in Italy, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon. Beautiful photos.At Ron and Sam's, Amoeba meets Rambler from Maine (previously Maryland). Rambler is a conversationalist. He makes custom furniture. So many talented people, like Rambler, hiking the trail. Around 8PM ZigZag arrives. She got a later start than she¢d hoped. Ron and Sam feed Amoeba lemon pound cake and sweet tea, and feed ZigZag supper.Amoeba loves these people and this place. Goodnight.