Date: 2012-05-15
From: Amicalola Falls State Park

To: Day 0
Miles today: 4.8

Bliss. Bliss is all that I can feel right now. I feel 10 lbs lighter even though I'm carrying a 35 lb pack. I can breathe easier. I'm back home at last!   So I got all loaded up at my Mom's house and took off around noon. Amicalola Falls State Park is about 100 miles north of ATL, and it took us no less than 2 hours to get there. The whole time I was chuckling in my head about how much longer it's going to take me to travel my next 100 miles north. Amicalola is a kind of off-the-beaten-path state park that is tucked away in the foothills of northern Georgia; I think it's only known to locals and thru-hikers. It hosts an 8-mile approach trail that is the only way to access Springer Mt. and the Appalachian Trail from the south. We pull into the park and my Mom and I, being the people that we are, proceed to spend way too much time hanging out at the rangers station. I registered at a 2012 thru-hiker and bought 100 miles or so worth of elevation profiles. I forgot to have my dad mail me the southern half of my guide book so I'll be hiking blind until I can get him to send out a mail-drop.    Mom and I spent a lot of time checking out the first 1/2-mile of the approach trail where the waterfall is. She took an embarrassing amount of pictures of me, clearly worried about me and sad about seeing me go again. I've bee going through a lot of these painful goodbyes lately: with Belle, with Gainesville and all of my friends, with my family. It's the price I have to pay to do this I guess; remember the past, think to the future, and just keep moving on. I'm gonna go ahead and say that Amicalola Falls rivals any of the large waterfalls that I saw in the Northeast. It's pretty amazing. With a little bit of effort, I was able to get my Mom up to an observation deck so that she could see the waterfall for herself. There, we said our final goodbyes amid a flurry of pictures and I set off to finish my adventure.   My very first challenge was getting up the 700 stairs that separated the observation deck from the top of the waterfall. And, despite how excited I was to be there, the strenuous physical activity definitely got the best of me. I was weak, dizzy, and gasping for air by the time I finished the stairs and reached the catwalk that crosses over the waterfall. Even though I tried to exercise, work out, and keep myself in shape when I was in Gainesville, there is only so much one can do to prepare for a hike like this. A lot of your stamina and cardio comes from just being out here lugging a pack around day-in and day-out. I hope that I at least retained some semblance of my trail-legs from last year...   The climb up the waterfall was a spectacular way for me to start the hike, but I definitely paid for it in terms of energy expenditure. My plan was to hike the entire approach trail today and sleep on top of Springer Mt. By the very first white-blaze on the AT. Standing on top of the waterfall, gasping for air and pouring cold-sweat, I noticed that the sun was about to dip behind a ridge so I made the executive decision to hike until the very first water source I could find and call it a day. About 3.5 miles later I heard a little stream babbling around the summit of Frosty Mountain and was happy to deploy my ol' blackbird and get to relaxing. And here I am, alone in the woods again. There is so much about being out here that I had forgotten about. The relief of dropping my pack at the end of the day. The air changing and the wind whipping up the leaves at sunset. The smell of water. The sound of silence. The effortless muscle-memory about the way I pack my pack, the special little order in which I set up my stove so I can roll over and immediately make a cup of coffee when I wake up. It's all coming back to me now. I really feel like I belong here. And I don't yet know quite what that means...