A Wet Week 1 in Georgia

Day 0 – Flight to Atlanta and Springer Approach Trail

Leading up to my start date, my anxiety was off the charts. I went through my gear and food probably 10 times and still was obsessively thinking about what I could be missing. On top of that, leading up to our start date, the weather was predicting a full week of rain and thunderstorm. Perfect.

Our flight to Atlanta took off at 6 am so we had to wake up at 4 am (Mountain Time). I had barely slept the night before but by the time we were driving, I felt calm. I did everything I could do to prepare and now it was time to just show up.

When we got to Atlanta, we were immediately greeted with so much kindness. I have hardly spent any time in the South so the way people were so outwardly nice and supportive to us immediately made me believe in that Southern Charm. My dad’s friend, Rob and his wife Linda (and their dog Zeus) were so kind to pick us up from the northern Marta train station and drive us to REI and Target for fuel and a new phone charger (mine snapped on the plane smh). I was very grateful for them because I could imagine it would be a very awkward (and expensive!) Uber ride since that was our initial plan.

We pulled up to Amicalola Falls and I felt jittery as we pulled up to the arch that I had seen in so many pictures for the past few years. I am a bit of a scatter brain when I am excited and anxious so luckily Jeremiah found where to register, attend a quick orientation, and we made plans to set off. I felt so blessed to get hiker #1542 which has a 2 in it, my very lucky number. We took our start photos, said bye to Rob and Linda, repacked our bags and set off.

It was about 3:30pm when we set off and we wanted to make it about 7.2 miles to a shelter right below the summit of Springer Mountain. If you are like me, you will be surprised to find out that the trail does not actually start until the summit of Springer Mountain. The 600 stairs to Amicalola Falls and 8.5 miles to the summit is just bonus, but we were happy to do it. The weather was cloudy but dry and I found it easy to breathe deeply, shoutout Colorado altitude.

On our way up, we were the only thru-hikers starting at the time. The place was packed with tourists and day hikers, people interested if we were “going to Maine”. I joked we were only going to Springer today. We finally met another thru hiker about half way up, a young and excited guy who told us his pack weighed an impressive 70-lb and he had learned of the hike through jeopardy. He had such a unique deep voice, I was not shocked to learn he was a classically trained opera singer. We thought of the trail name Crescendo for him and told him our plans to make it to Black Gap shelter and we’d see him there. At one point we came over a climb and I heard “road to nowhere” playing in the distance. That’s my anthem of the trail for the last week and after confirming Jeremiah could hear it too, I thought it must be trail magic. The music turned out to be for the 74 mile ultra race, still magic though.

By the time we got there, we were happy to meet four other aspiring thru hikers like us and a couple section hikers. Reflecting on my past few days, the absolute best parts of the trail so far are the people we met, and I really want to talk about them. They have granted me permission to write about them but to provide a bit of anonymity to my stories, I will just use their trail names even though most were given throughout the week.

Tree introduced himself first. He is turning 60 in two weeks and is from Birmingham, Alabama. He has two adult kids now and a wife of almost 30 years. It warmed my heart listening to him talking about saying goodbye to them and how they are all so supportive of him hiking his dream. We also met a guy around our age, Smokie. Smokie’s trail name was given to him the first night when he told a group of college girls at camp they have to stop making a fire due to a fire ban. I suggested fire Marshall but Smokie (the bear) worked better because he also is trying to quit smoking cigarettes (ironic) and works a day job in a cannabis extraction lab. We also met a man we named Pumba, a counselor from Utah who was laid off from his job and is now hiking his dream. Like the lion king character, you hear Pumba before you see him and he is incredibly optimistic about even the worst situations. Hakuna Matata. Lastly we met Iceberg. Iceberg was in the Marines, is now a welder, who introduced himself briefly night one and then retreated to his tent. We hiked with him the whole first day and he told me some crazy stories about his life, his son, his time in the service, and his ten years living in New Hampshire. I joked he should be called Iceberg because he doesn’t give much away at first, but I can tell he has a ton of stories underneath. He loved it and took it.

I’m getting ahead of myself talking about trail names and catching you up on the very special people I met on the first night. Anyways, we ate dinner all together, got a little giddy about the idea of starting the trail tomorrow (remember we are only on the approach) and went to bed early.

Day 1 – Summit Springer to Hawk Mountain Shelter

Jeremiah and I woke up in the tent to rain. It wasn’t supposed to start until the afternoon so I was pretty bummed. However, when I went outside, I realized it wasn’t raining, it was misting and the sound was condensing water falling off the trees. The mist was so spooky but so beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. I had oatmeal and coffee for breakfast, talked to Smokie, Pumba, Crescendo and Tree. Crescendo told us the story of how he got to trail he told us yesterday, it took him two days, many busses, and when he finally got on a train, the train hit a car. The way he tells the story is legendary and made us all peel over laughing. Then me and Jeremiah were off.

Springer was surprisingly easy! We powered up it no problem and got to the summit to touch the plaque. There was no view but again, I find the eery mist so beautiful!

Our hike for a while was just us leap frogging with a nice family from Georgia who are section hiking and we met at camp earlier. Then Iceberg, Smokie, Tree, and Pumba appeared on trail. They are all hilarious and I was so happy to meet up with them and hike with them in the afternoon! It already felt like a bit of a trail family vibe since we were all so happy and I am constantly laughing around them. Also, before that we went to a shelter and and older gentleman, Turtle, started lecturing Jeremiah and us about how Trump is doing everything good. Luckily another older gentleman, Quiet Man, was there and told him some good arguments why everything he was saying was totally uncalled for. He told him, let the trail be the trail, don’t bring Washington to the wilderness. He earned my respect because a man like Turtle was not going to listen to my arguments. He just wanted to lecture. The rest of the afternoon we ate lunch (naan and cheese) hung out and talked. Smokie reminds me a lot of my friend from home (Hi Matt) and my brain has to remind myself he’s not my years long friend and tone down my sarcasm. Everyone is just good vibes and I know all these dudes will go to the end.

We camped at Hawk Mountain Shelter and since it was raining, I slept in the shelter for the first time. There was a large crew at the shelter, we have decided that this trail feels almost like a sitcom (the office style) and made a joke whenever we meet someone new we are “unlocking a new character”. We all talked, got to know each other more, and Tree watched his Auburn March madness game. Tree is incredibly funny and someone told me he is textbook Alabama. If that’s true I’d love Alabama.

I love it out here already. I already smell and my calves feel tight. I’m stretching and taking care of myself, my journey is unfolding exactly as it should.

Also, quick shoutout. I just found out Pumba is also a trek blogger! His link is here: https://thetrek.co/author/james-m/
Tree is vlogging the experience on YouTube as well, here’s his page https://youtu.be/cuxMzpgfyBM?si=Sm8f_04UGNhEV2ig

Day 2 – Hawk Mountain Shelter to Gooch Shelter

I don’t know if I will write about every single day like this post since it takes a lot of time and who really cares about what I am doing every day. But I will for now! Alright Day 2 on trail, 3 overall, Monday. We woke up in the shelter to the sound of the rain. It rained pretty much all night and I didn’t sleep well because every few minutes I thought mice were on my feet. I felt grateful to learn that I was in good company cause everyone felt that way. We packed up and headed to Gooch Mountain. Rain was looking like it was going to last all day with severe thunderstorms. I gagged down oatmeal and realized I am really bad at collecting my stuff in one area in a shelter where everyone is sleeping. I’ll get better, I hope, cause it’s exhausting trying to distinguish my smart water bottle from everyone else’s.

Anyways, me and Jeremiah set off. It was super misty and my legs felt surprisingly good. We caught up to Not Bad, short for “Not Bad for 65” pretty quick and almost immediately after starting it started raining hard. Yesterday was just a misty drizzle but today the rain drops were coming down like bullets. It felt good with my umbrella and we just pushed through our climbs. I immediately lost my headphones after listening to a couple songs.

Not Bad, Jeremiah, and I talked the whole day. He is a planner and is pretty nervous about this whole thing. But excited. Sooo excited. He wants his trail name to be Not Bad for 65 but I thought we can do better and we tried all day. He is recently divorced, newly dating, and freshly retired. I said he should be caterpillar because of his new take on life. (Foreshadowing Not Bad stuck because we all started saying “Not bad” whenever asked about our sleep, hike, or health) The forest felt like a rainforest today, it was so beautiful and mystical. We have been doing short days to start, as I learned that trail legs will come, but don’t push it from the CT.

We made it to the shelter and I did just barely cause I was running from the water stream after I felt the air pressure drop. Jeremiah and Jim didn’t and were soaking because the sky opened up and the hardest rain yet came down.

My camera was wet but you can still see how wet Jeremiah was when he got to the shelter only seconds after me.

Shortly after Smokie, Pumba, Iceberg, and Tree pulled up wet as hell and it felt like a reunion. I know I’ve only known them a short time but I already feel so close to them. Literally everything Tree says I laugh at in fact I’m laughing right now at something he said. There was this guy here So Duc (“Darling Ur Crazy) he has a thick southern accent and talks more then me. He’s funny though and been through a lot of trauma, which he’ll share with anyone who comes within a certain radius of him. A British man was also here when I got there and a man who accused everyone of stealing his garmin and then found it and left. I ate ramen and talked to this girl, Sugar Glider, who had her 4000 footer club hat on and is hiking Alabama to Canada solo (AT hard mode dare I say). We met two other solo female hikers both in their mid thirties. One lady sold everything she had to make sure she does not quit. She said “everything I got im carrying” I thought that was so cool. To be honest, I’ve been a little bummed about how few ladies I’ve met on trail so far. I hope that changes soon. Iceberg also told me he found my headphones on trail. This had become his thing, picking up items we leave on trail, and especially mine because I fear I always leave things behind. (This has always been what I do, everywhere you go there you are)

We ate dinner, hung out, the sun came out, I laughed a lot. I found myself getting sad thinking about how pushing for more miles tomorrow might split everyone up. Jeremiah made a good point that everyone flows like water and we will see people again and goodbye is just see you later. We also met Burger Man and Sparky at camp this night who we would hike with for the next few days. They started at Springer that morning so they had met Crescendo. We all laughed his story is becoming a bit of trail legend in our bubble so we wrote in the shelter log a long message about how we all miss him and hope he’s staying dry out there. We went to bed on the top part of the shelter again, me, Jeremiah, Not Bad, Iceberg, Tree, and Smokie.

Day 3 – Gooch to Neel’s Gap

We all slept horribly because the British man below us snored so loud it shook the walls. Even through my earplugs (if you plan on hiking the AT, trust me, BRING EARPLUGS) I could not believe how loud it was. Someone below woke me up at 3 am because he was screaming from a night terror which spiked my heart rate and kept me up for an hour. Also an older gentlemen below us farted continuously throughout the night. It was comedic how hard it was to sleep amongst the six of us. I also learned I can comfortably sleep in the shelter with my buff covering my whole face so that if the mice run across it, I am protected (just let me believe that). Something about shared misery is so funny as we were all laughing at the misfortune pretty loudly throughout the night and no one below us woke up. We found out later every tent at the campsite also could not sleep due to the snoring.

 

We got an early start (we had no other choice), packed up in the dark and hoped to get bigger miles in. I was excited to test the state of my legs! I said a sad goodbye to Tree. I’ll miss him but he wants to take an easy day so we will see him again later. I also realize we will be separating from Quiet Man, who we spent the last few days with and learned so many cool stories. Just to scratch the surface, he spent 30 years in the military, has some crazy stories from that, became a high school history teacher, and even ran a couple Boston qualifying marathon times in his forties. He lives in Maryland and says perhaps he’ll rip some trail magic for us when we get there. We will miss him!

We started going and me and Strider talked to Smokie for a long while about family dynamics, growing up, pets, etc. the time flew and the sun was shining on our faces so I was so so grateful. We got to some bathrooms at a trail head about four miles out. We ate breakfast and met a 7-year old girl with dreams of hiking the AT very soon. It was full circle for me. For some reason, burger man started telling her and her dad about his trail magic, a pair of underwear he found next to his tent and was now wearing them. This gave him the new trail name Skivvy.

We hiked up with Skivvy, Sparky, and Not Bad. We laughed together and the time passed quickly. I felt hot but was so grateful for it (I later found out this was me getting sunburnt). Sparky is 18, fresh out of high school, and is going to lineman school when he finishes. He is hiking the trail for his Mom, who dreamed of doing it all her life. I would’ve never guessed he was only 18, but I respect the hell out of him for being out here alone. The climbs were hard but not awful. Today we had to get over Blood mountain which is supposedly the ATs first true test. I taped up some blisters at the base and we got a couple bits of trail magic (day hikers giving us candy). I also scared Skivvy in my successful April Fools prank of the day. Then we pushed up.

It wasn’t that bad. Skivvy and Sparky are strong fast hikers and got the climb over with quick. We ate lunch with a beautiful view and talked to some day hikers. I remember also being amazed by the idea of a 5 month long hike once. I still am when I really think about it.

Ignore Smokie’s message he didn’t realize this mountain was named after an indigenous battle.. I just liked my message in the trail log 😀

The hike down was harder than the way up and I slid down a rock by accident. I was fine, but that made me decide to slow down a bit from the boys and I ended up meeting this girl who I instantly clicked with. She told me how she was about to quit because she hadn’t found anyone she liked yet. She’s a social worker with a big heart and I suggested Carebear. She loved it!

We made it to the world’s largest (felt like it) general store in Neel’s gap and saw the infamous tree of shoes. Apparently, trail legend has it that 20% of thru hikers quit here, only 32 miles in.

This store has the largest amount of gear I could imagine, in fact I watched a lady buy $700 of new gear. I saw sugar glider, the NH girl from yesterday walking AT hard mode, and she commended us for our big day. I appreciated that coming from her. We then goofed around outside and made sure we had enough food when suddenly Iceberg appeared. He was lit to see us and told us about how he tried to scare that little girl from earlier thinking it was me. It had us all laughing so hard. He even found Not Bads sock. Not bad was so happy he made a long day and felt good still, I was happy for him. We feel like a little family already. And, like I keep saying, we are always always laughing around them. I’ve actually never seen Jeremiah laugh so much and sometimes I have to separate myself because my stomach hurts. It’s like we’ve known each other for years and we’ve only known each other three nights.

Also, Jeremiah got his trail name today- Strider after the distinct way he walks and a character in lord of the rings. We like that it’s Smokie, Sparky, Skivvy, and Strider. People have suggested trial names for me but nothing has been the one yet, perhaps I am too picky :p They were calling me dueces for a while until Skivvy told me about his friend in Vermont with that name trying to set the Long Trail Women’s FKT. She’s a lot cooler than me so she can have it lol. They also suggested Icebreaker, because so far I have gotten to know and made friends with everyone we met. I just love hearing people’s stories, it really makes the trail so special.

We hiked up to camp and laughed some more around dinner. I ate pad Thai and some pop tarts. I’m not used to digging holes because I’ve had the privilege of a privy thus far. Then as we were going to bed, Pumba showed up. We all got so excited. It made my whole night. I had to write this twice btw but this whole day – NOT BAD!!!!

Day 4 – Bulls Gap to Low Gap

This morning I woke up to the wind ripping by our tent and was scared because of all of the trees nearby. I slept pretty good! It was misty again outside, what I’ve grown used to the AT being.. I made breakfast essentials and we were off pretty quickly. Today I hiked with Sparky, Skivvy, and Strider. It was a hard day on the legs. The climbs felt long and the down hills hurt. It was on and off raining all day. I was just looking forward to camp all day. I found a poncho on the way and we joked it made me blow up like a blueberry. We did the 10 miles early and got to camp by 1 pm.

When we got to the shelter, a man named Link told me the poncho belonged to his friend Grizzley who quit the trail today. You can imagine my heartbreak when I found out that he quit because he hurt his back running after his poncho. Wtf. I ate a big lunch cause I felt weak and tired all day and people started showing up one by one. I found myself getting anxious today about our little crew all splitting up in the next few days. Strider and I are going to town tomorrow since we’re practically out of food and no one else is. I think it’ll work out and I like our plan because I want to hike in the sun Friday and Saturday. Hike your own hike.

We played cards and all talked. One of the funniest moments I remember is when a man named Momento told a young barefoot hiker who only wears shoes to church and restaurants that he can show up to his remote class naked for all he cares and Sparky’s absolute obsession with the flat screen TV in the hostel coming up. I am also spending time reflecting on my own relationship with the east coast and the people here. Letting the ego slide off my shoulders and do shorter days as I force myself to remember that the trail legs will come, with time. I’m hoping to fall deeper into who I am on this trail and not just who I want to be.

Overall, the AT has been a great experience, better than I could’ve dreamed. Even in the rain for the first week, I’ve found spaces to be grateful and have been smiling ear to ear virtually the whole time since I’ve been here. I’m sure it will get old, constantly being wet. But it makes the sunny days feel warmer and even more special. Pray for sunshine next week and thanks for reading my first trail update!! Cheers!