Date: 2013-11-18
From: hawk mountain shelter 

To: amicalola & Springer 
Miles today: 16.9
Weather: clear sky

Completed my thru hike. Very spent. Write more later.---Woke up to my last day on the AT very emotional but also crystal clear mentally. I sat alone on the front of the shelter and watched the sun rise, with my breath swirling around me in the first rays of the sun. The sun. It finally came out. All those days of rain, and just like on Mt Washington, Katahdin, Clingmans Dome, and even Max Patch on my summit day... the storm clears. This is probably coincidence but it feels like more. It feels like I am on the right path, like I'm meant to be here, I am welcome on this earth. At this moment I am safe, and alive, and everything is as it should be. It's a good feeling.Got over all that feeling by trying to twist out a little more water from my clothes and then hopped out of my bag to struggle into them, thankful at least they weren't frozen. Played music out of the speaker in my phone as loud as it would go as I made breakfast, happy I was alone, and could sing "Wake Me Up" at the top of my lungs and nobody would hear. The squirrels complained a little.Took a little side trail to Hickory Flats, sorta delaying the inevitable end of the trail, checked out a church camp and odd graveyard, and headed back to finish this thing out. Long creek falls was small but pretty, there haven't been many waterfalls lately. I'm going to miss seeing waterfalls all the time. Keep going. Crossed the Benton MacKaye trail so many times I lost track of where I was. The Springer Mountain .9 mile sign shows up so quickly it takes me by surprise. And then there it is, like all the pictures, just a big rock on a hill in Georgia with a bronze plaque on it and a logbook in a steel box underneath. "Southern Terminus" I touched it, sat down next to it, yelled into the wind while standing on it. No champagne or irish jigs or cheering this time, just the sounds of birds happily warming up in the sun, and a lunatic with a beard yelling at rocks. I have a hundred things I wanted to write in this rock's logbook but cant remember any of them. I feel really lucky to be here, laughing at how silly my whole plan was, how many things could have gone wrong, how many things DID go wrong, the absurdity of dedicating half a year of my life to walk 2100 miles to see a rock in Georgia, and yet how fulfilling the journey really was.Decided to finish my hike by walking down the Approach trail, down hundreds of steel stairs to stare up at the incredible Amicalola falls, in full rainbow, standing suspended over the falls on a steel grate bridge, as the sun turned golden red in the sky. Everywhere I looked was beautiful. Got to the stone arch at the entrance to the park where signs and plaques pointed out and explained the Appalachian Trail. "A footpath for those who seek fellowship with the wilderness... it beckons not merely north and south, but upward to the body, mind, and soul of man." There is a gift shop at the end.Dropped my gear in the empty thru-hiker-only shelter, hoped a bear wouldn't eat the packet of shrimp ramen and half-eaten jar of peanut butter left in it, and walked back up the stairs in the dark to the lodge. They had an all you can eat buffet and I was the only customer. When they found out I was a thru hiker, several of the staff came out excitedly to talk and the waiter told me my meal was free, and he'd be happy to put out more roast beef in case I ate it all. He also gave me a ride to pick up my gear, to his house for drinks and to meet his roommates, and finally to the hiker hostel where I found PT and some other thruhikers either gearing up for their last days, or resting up from finishing. It feels real now. I'm done. Tomorrow I will hitchhike back to Hot Springs, NC to visit friends and take a long, much needed break from walking. After that? Who knows. No more white blazes to follow. -Stripe---