Date: 2005-04-02
From: Amicalola Falls State Park Welcome Center

To: Springer Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 0.2
Weather: broken clouds

So, here I am, the legendary AT. And it's cool. DaleAmerica (AT 2002) picked me up this morning to give me a ride the 2 hours or so from Atlanta. What a nice guy. He tells a lot of funny stories and no doubt has a zest for life. Not only did he drive me for free, but he offered me some of his gear. I walked away with a 2004 Data Book, a map of the Georgia section, a warm hat and gloves, and a Mapdanna, which is a bandanna with an abridged map and some data. The guy even tried to give me his headlamp: like I said, good guy. It was a beautiful Spring starting day, heavy wind, 35 degrees and freezing rain. So you can imagine how grateful I am for the hat and gloves, I would have frozen to death without them! There were 1-2 inches of snow on the ground after a little height was gained; I was glad for this since it makes my start day memorable in this way.Dale was originally going to drive me up to Springer Mountain and we almost got there in the car. I wasn't really sure about it before we got to Amicalola Falls and I thought, "Eh...I've just hiked 1100 miles of trail, why do 8.7 miles that are not even real trail?" As we drove away from Amicalola Falls State Park, I started feeling badly, like I was not in integrity with myself since I wasn't doing the approach trail. I tried to justify it, saying to myself, "well, you can always come back and do it. It doesn't matter since it's not even really the AT." But the feeling grew and I kept thinking back on how I had heard several people mentioning their walk on the approach trail before and how so many people quit on it. So finally, almost at the turnoff for the forest road up to Springer, I asked Dale to turn around. I immediately felt better knowing I was going to do it, like I was doing the right thing for me, somehow. Dale said, "now you'd BETTER make it to Maine!" And I hop!e not to dissapoint him.Dale lent me his license plate, "GATOME" and I posed for a photo with it at the arch trailhead outside of the park office. Then I was off! 3:00 starting time. I enjoyed the mile up to the Amicalola Falls parking lot and viewing area; it really wasn't bad and neither was the rest of the approach trail. I can now honestly opine that the people who quit on the approach trail are wimps, in my humble opinion of course. I was feeling good too because this afternoon at the park office I was feeling really nervous, like I was totally out of my element. Everyone at Amicalola Falls park office looked like they were straight out of some friggin' L.L. Bean catalog. I said to myself, "this is a whole new ballgame". But so far, so good on the hiking, I think I'm gonna be A-OK and I'm happy about that.Getting to Springer Mountain, I saw Jude up there, who'd I seen at the park office. He's a couple years older than me, from Tampa, seems like a good guy. This is his first real backpacking trip; I think it's cool that he chose such a challenging trail. There was also this section hiker couple up there, and the guy offered me some Jim Beam whiskey. With the exception of my sweets-denied month, I've had an "accept items for consumption offered to me on the trail without thinking about it" policy since I started the Florida Trail and so of course I said, "Sure, thanks man" without a moment's consideration of whether it was a good idea and he whipped the bottle out and told me to say "when" as he poured the whiskey into my cup. I swallowed about two shots quickly and felt a bit tipsy. "Hmph" I thought to myself. "Perhaps that was not such a good idea." I only had a couple hundred meters to hike to the shelter.There's a scale to weigh your pack at the park office and when you sign the register down there, they have a column to note your pack weight. The whole sheet was filled up and the weights were like: 42, 57, 48, 52 lbs. I was pretty surprised because I thought most people who did long-distance hiking these days had gone lightweight. I weighed my pack actually for the first time ever and my guesses were about right, 18.5 lbs including 1.8L of water and 2 days of food. I would have a difficult time enjoying walking with 50 pounds on my back. I got a lot of questions about my gear when I got to the shelter.Everyone in the shelter seems really neat. There are about 10 of us in the shelter, all guys and all thru-hikers, and with the exception of one in his late 50s, everyone is around my age. That was a surprise too. So far I am doing well with all the people and being friendlier than I was concerned I would be, having been hiking by myself all this time. I got a lot of heads turned in my direction when it came up that I had already hiked 1100 miles; it appears that most of these guys don't have much backpacking experience and I explained that I felt pretty anxious about the AT too since the FT was a different kind of hiking. It seems like there's a real sense of comraderie among the thru-hikers and I would rather be part of the traveling communioty than not, as independent-spirited as I usually am.I am excited for a full day tomorrow and starting to walk the actual trail.