Postscript SASH #10: GA AT Communities and Atlanta, GA

“Truckin’, like the doo-dah man; Once told me, “You got to play your hand”; Sometimes the cards ain’t worth a dime; If you don’t lay ’em down” Truckin’, Grateful Dead

4 April – Nightingale and I had already planned to spend about another week in the Atlanta area after I completed this section. Ending early, just meant we had an extra day to explore. One of the first things I wanted to do – although Nightingale needed very little convincing – was to head back out to Blairsville and visit a moonshine distillery! Blairsville is also an AT community only about 10 miles north of Neel Gap. Grandaddy Mimm’s Distilling Company is a great local place to visit; they even have an AT mural painted on the side of their warehouse building! On the drive to Blairsville from Atlanta, we stopped in another AT community – Ellijay, GA, about 20 miles northwest of Amicalola Falls State Park. Here we enjoyed some great Georgia barbeque at Colonel Poole’s Bar-B-Q. Later in the week, we also visited the New Echota and the Chief Vann House State Historical Sites, about 50 miles west of Amicalola Falls State Park. Both sites are related to the infamous “Trail of Tears,” the forced relocation by the U.S. Government of thousands of indigenous people, the Cherokee, from their ancestral lands in North Georgia during the mid-nineteenth century. These visits were especially poignant for me as I had just hiked over their ancestral lands and climbed Blood Mountain, where legend holds that a bloody battle was fought between the Cherokee and the Muskegee (Creek) peoples. The time was good to reflect upon the fact that the mountains, the land, the trail, do not really belong to us. The remainder of our time in Atlanta had nothing really to do with the AT; so, I will let the section hike end here.

New Echota State Historical Site and Cherokee Nation capital and village.

Chief Vann House State Historical Site; Cherokee Nation

I do need to recount some lessons learned from this section. It should seem that after all these years, I would have everything down to a well-drilled routine. At the end of each hiking season, I clean and put away all my backpacking gear. I do day hikes throughout the winter, but I use very little of my section hiking kit for day hiking. I had three equipment failures during this section. The first, a joint of the frame of my Helinox Zero Chair snapping was not possible to foresee. I imagine I put too much torque on the joint when getting up out of the chair. That happened the first day; Axel and Edna remarked I looked comfortable in my chair at Springer Mountain Shelter. However, to be honest, I didn’t miss the chair during the remaining days. I doubt I will replace the chair; so, there will be some savings in my base weight. My Sawyer Squeeze filter was clogged; this was avoidable if I had tested the filter before leaving home. My Nemo Tensor sleeping pad had a pinhole leak. I do not know if it happened the first day on trail, but I do not believe that was the case. Either way, I should have inflated the pad before leaving home. Even if your gear all worked when you put it away, functional checks every time before you hit the trail will save you some frustration.

While six days is my longest time on trail for a section, it really was only five days of hiking. The extra rest at Woods Hole Shelter definitely made a huge difference in my ability to hike on the next day without pain. The reality remains that 5-6 days is all my painful hip situation can handle. The fact that Nightingale is willing to support my hikes means I will be able to continue these Short Ass Section Hikes. But I am wondering if I will ever be able to do a LASH for a couple weeks. And with that, I am beginning to wonder if at this pace, I will ever be able to complete the trail. Even as a section hiker. I turn 65 in three weeks. Certainly, I do not see age as a factor. But I am running out of summers and these small sections will not suffice. This section was a great opportunity to get a taste of being a thru hiker, since I started in the bubble season. I had a chance to become part of a budding trail family. Re-reading my “why” hike the AT, I am reminded that it is the journey and not the destination that ultimately matters. The artistry of hiking is that the ultimate definition of your success is up to you. For now, I am feeling successful and ready to sketch out my next section hike.