Date: 2005-03-13
From: Amicalola Falls State Park Visitors' Center

To: Springer Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 0.2
Weather: clear sky

Day One: In which Jess relies on Mapquest and gets hopelessly lost, neglects to ask a church group to pray for her, makes friends with people with fake names, and embarks on a really long walk: I have to say I went 0.2 miles today because only 0.2 of them were actually on the AT itself, but I really hiked 9 miles: 0.2 on the Appalachian Trail, and 8.8 on the Approach Trail leading up to it. I'm holding fast to the memory of those 8.8 miles. Fie, mileage meter!The day dawned beautifully - bright sun, and temperatures near 80. Lynne fed me waffles, because she is great like that, and we jumped in the car to drive to Amicalola, which, according to the mapquest directions I was using, was only about an hour and a half away. For future reference: Never, ever, use mapquest directions when driving through rural Georgia to a place you have never been. Signs were missing, roads were unmarked, distances were deceiving.Lynne: Is this the turn?Me: I think so. I'm not sure. But turn there. Yeah, turn there. If it's wrong we'll know in five miles.Lynne: I can't wait till the day you're on the trail and you don't know where to turn and you tell your hiking partners, Let's just go five miles and see if we're in the right spot.Thankfully, once we did manage to find the park, (three hours later), the staff at the visitors' center had nice straightforward directions to get Lynne back to Atlanta, for which I was exceedingly grateful, as she might have killed me if faced with the prospect of backtracking through all those miles of unmarked roads alone with Mapquest. She gets a million thank-yous for the drive.By the time we'd gone and looked at the falls, returned to the visitors' center so I could sign the register, and waited for the church group in front of the trailhead sign to finish their group prayer so that I could get a photo with the sign, it was nearly noon. I knew Mike and Scholar had set off hours earlier; I expected the trail to be nearly empty as I hiked it, and it was. I passed several people coming down the mountain, but saw almost none headed the same direction I was.The warmth and sun were unbelievable. I took it slow, stopping often for water and views. The trail was scattered with chunks of bright white quartz covered in small dark lichen-spots. Dalmatian rocks. I was a little worried about making it up by dark and I was startled when all of a sudden I found myself on the summit, alone, with no warning, just a small clearing, and a couple of small metal plaques set in stone, and a splash of white paint. So many pictures of the starting point, and the space always seems large and looming in import. So small and simple when you find yourself there. Quiet. One step. Touch the first blaze. Here I am. Here I go.I looked down at my hip and laughed. I was wearing my convertible hiking pants - the only pair I had - and the day before I'd accidentally bumped into a wet-paint-covered doorway, leaving a streak of white on my left hip. So there is a blaze on my ass and a blaze on the ground. And I will always know exactly where I am.No-one else was up there. I held my camera at arms' length, and managed to get most of my face and most of the plaque into the shot, grinning like an idiot. And I headed down the trail, 0.2 miles to the first shelter.I heard voices and saw tents and wandered towards them, a little unsure. Two people were sitting near a small fire. They looked at me. "Break a Leg?" said one of them. They both grinned. "Cuppa Joe," he said, and gave me a hug. I looked at the other. I knew her from her pictures right away. "Scholar!" I said.It's extremely difficult not to like people who greet you by name with a hug at the top of a mountain. "We're glad you made it," said Scholar. "We weren't sure when you got started." "There's someone else who'll be glad to see you," said Cuppa Joe, and yelled, "Mike! Someone's here!""Hey," said Mike, "I thought maybe you'd bailed.""No way, man," I said.We walked back up to the summit and watched the sun set. I signed theregister with a favorite Douglas Adams quote: "The secret to flying is throwing yourself at the ground and missing."I was, honestly, afraid that the physical stress of the first day might reduce me to a quivering jellylike mess. You hear so many stories of people going a mile on the Approach Trail, deciding they can't handle it, and dumping their full packs on the side of the trail. But at the end of the first day, I'm tired, and a little stiff, but happy. It's been a reminder: at the end of the day, all this is is walking. It's putting one foot in front of the other. This, I can do.