Day One: Amicalola Falls State Park to Springer Mountain

The start of the Appalachian Trail is on top of a mountain (Springer Mountain) in the middle of the Chattahoochee National Forest. It is 8.8 miles from the Visitor Center to Springer Mountain, and the path to it is known to AT hikers as "the Approach Trail." Many AT hikers choose to drive via Forest Service roads to a drop off point approximately one mile from Springer Mountain and then hike back to the start. Chuck and I were a little perplexed by that as we figured an additional nine-ish miles wasn't something worth skipping, especially when the miles have waterfalls attached to them!

As anticipated, today is cold and grey. Jill took us out for breakfast on our way to Amicalola State Park - our last warm breakfast for a while. While we ate, we noticed flurries of snow starting to fall from the sky. Great.... But there's no turning back now. It's time to attack the trail!

Springer Mountain here we come!

We signed in at the visitor center, put on our warmest clothes, adjusted our packs and were ready to go.  The walk leading up to the Falls was beautiful despite the barrenness of many trees, and although the day was overcast, we were in great moods.  Why would anyone skip such a pretty walk?

We could hear the roar of the Falls ahead of us, and through the trees we started to catch glimpses of what is the highest waterfall in Georgia (729 feet). It was breathtaking! To reach the top of the Falls, you must climb 604 steps, and trust me, they were steep. As we climbed, Chuck and I wondered how they were built: the hill the stairs scaled was so steep, we imagined builders dangling from ropes as they built a really sturdy and strong set of stairs.

 

Many stairs yet to go

Finally we reached the top! Chuck noticed that the snow flurries were flying in an upward direction above the waterfall. It was a strange and almost eerie phenomenon. Some of the snow must have been falling the right direction though because the bridge over the top was just starting to get a dusting of snow on it. I hoped that was all we'd see today, just a dusting.

We left civilization behind us and headed off into the wilderness.  The next several miles were a slow and steady climb up over various mountains and hills - Frosty Mountain, Woody Knob - with only a few short descents into Nimblewill Gap and Black Gap. How much fun must it have been all those years ago to name all these places!

We saw almost no one as we walked.  The air was crisp and cold, but we were warm from hiking.  At one point we saw an abandoned tent and other camping supplies. It was only a couple of miles from the parking lot, and we wondered who had wanted to camp so close to the start and then why they had completely abandoned a lot of camping gear. Was the trail really that hard? Had they been attacked by beasts in the night? We didn't really have time to puzzle that one out, so we salvaged a medium sized foam pad from the site and on we went.  

As we climbed higher and higher into the hills, the air got colder and the snow got a little heavier. We were starting to get a little chilly despite the exertion. We passed a shelter at Black Gap. Originally, we had planned to camp near it for the night, but we were both still feeling strong and so we decided we'd go at least  another mile and a half to Springer Mountain and perhaps even beyond it! Oh the optimism...

That last mile and a half was fairly steep (about a 10% grade on average), the winds were starting to get fierce and the daylight was rapidly vanishing. But, at last we emerged at the top - Springer Mountain, the official start of the Appalachian Trail.  I was underwhelmed. There were a few rocks, a couple of plaques and a fairly open, rounded mountain top with a lot of "NO CAMPING" signs all over it.  Nonetheless, we took a few pictures to commemorate the starting point.

That rock was COLD!!!!!

I know Chuck probably wanted some more pictures, but the longer we were still, the colder I was. Finally, we moved on and reached the shelter nearby.  We decided we'd had enough wind and cold and that we were definitely going to do our best to get into the shelter for the night. There were six other people already there, and the groups had managed to pitch all of their tents inside (four in total).  We persuaded them to let us squeeze in with them and spent a while trying to figure out how to get our tent wedged into the mix.  I was definitely cold, and Chuck piled all the sleeping bags and liners around me while he did most of the set up work.

With the wind still howling and snow all around, we had a cold supper and decided the best thing to do was snuggle into our sleeping bags with a hope that the night wasn't going to turn out to be as cold as we thought...