Southbound: The Days Before and After Springer Mountain

On November 17, 2022, I completed my southbound thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. A walk from Mt. Katahdin, Maine, to Springer Mountain, Georgia. Around 2,194 miles, 14 states, 165 days, 5 months, and 12 days of being a woods person. I lived out my 30-year-old crisis and did all the soul-searching, sweating, dancing, laughing, picture-taking, and crying a person could do.

No one will understand your journey more than the thru-hiking community – THANK YOU!

This is a long post so I want to give credit where it’s due before the rambly storytelling. Here goes!

For 14 states I followed an indentation of footsteps creating a dent in the earthen forest floor. The woods would exist without us, the trail would not.

Thru-hiking is truly a community activity. The blazed footpath exists due to human beings, primarily volunteers, who maintain and support the trail system each year. Creators who inspire and document experiences. All the friends, family, and strangers who encourage. Trail angels who shuttle, feed and provide water to hikers. Hikers who create a safe and loving environment. Generous people who pick up smelly hitchhikers and open their homes and churches for no financial return. And the numerous business owners and employees that run welcoming hostels, build resourceful outfitters, and stock grocery stores full of tuna packets and ramen.

Thank you. The experience would not be possible without giving credit to every single person I interacted with. Thank you for making so many dreams into a reality. The web of life-changing positive influence is never-ending. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, now onto the rambly bits before I get too sentimental 🙂

Plans are only made to be adjusted. That’s the story of my group’s last ten days on the AT.

An end date of November 17 was set around two weeks out from finishing. The possibility of meeting a goal to be home by Thanksgiving wavered throughout the thru-hike like the mountains we were climbing. But the miles add up fast and in the end we were right on schedule!

To make the last ten days less stressful, a loose itinerary was made by planning wizard Cheerio while the seven of us relaxed in a hot tub at Creekside Paradise Bed and Breakfast in Robbinsville, NC, after exiting the Great Smoky Mountains. This itinerary had mileage and total vertical ascent for the remaining 158 miles split between mountain-top campsites, shelters, and hostels. It was no longer a race to the end. All we had to do was walk. And while I generally preferred to plan on the fly, a finishing plan is something I’d highly recommend.

Yellow blazing as a lesson of adaptability

Here is my guilty admission: I yellow-blazed (skipped via car) 6.8 miles of trail located in North Carolina between Forest Service Road 69 and Winding Stair Gap parking lot. After 2,077 miles, my generally continuous footpath was broken.

It’s a classic story of an unexpected ride offered at an obscure trailhead at exactly the right time. A tramily member needed medical assistance for a painful circumstance of bad luck. Contrary to popular thru-hiker opinion, health can sometimes be more important than making miles happen *insert eye roll*. Disregarding the pure stubbornness of hikers to seek help, resources like walk-in clinics and pharmacies were surprisingly scarce along the AT. With this opportunity representing a solution, a ride to a nearby walk-in clinic, we had to take it.

By accepting that ride into town, I understood the 23-miles planned for the day would be unlikely. With the mindset of the hitch always happens, I trusted we’d be able to get into town and back before nightfall. However, it would be impossible or quite costly to get a shuttle back to the trailhead we’d left from. Both of us agreed that while skipping miles wasn’t the preferred option, in the grand scheme of a 2,195-mile thru-hike, missing between five to ten miles wouldn’t be shattering.

While we were in town I picked up a $10 plastic poncho from an outfitter and, of course, we got some fast food from Sonic before hitting the road.

Luck struck again as a local trail angel offered a free ride from Franklin to Winding Stair Gap. We arrived back at the trailhead at dusk with 7.5 miles remaining to Long Branch Shelter in heavy rain. It would be the first of many upcoming days where I’d rely on the new red plastic poncho to keep my torso warm in ways that my rain jacket simply failed.

The trail provides in the most unexpected ways. When it came to how much the last week tremendously benefited from us going into Franklin, NC, there are no regrets. It was a lesson in adaptability. My thru-hike is imperfect and that’s okay. Plus, now I have a reason to go back.

Cold weather has a way of convincing a hiker that, yeah, maybe it’s time to be done.

The days heading into Springer Mountain had some sunshiney blue skies mixed in with ice-covered branches, below-freezing nights, frosty mornings, and rain.

With long days planned and cold rain in the forecast, a family meeting was held on the wooden bottom floor of Long Branch Shelter. An alternative “platinum blaze” plan was crafted by a few which consisted of additional nights in hostels and slackpacking between road crossings. I resided with the stubborn folk who felt the call to continue with the original plan in order to save money and “enjoy” the elements as they were presented.

Each person enjoying their own hike was more important than keeping the group together every night. The original plan was still in play, just slightly adjusted.

This worked out well for a few reasons. Firstly, I had not slackpacked since leaving Katahdin Stream Campground in Maine on Day 2. (It’s common to carry a day pack to summit Mt. Katahdin.) It was a proud personal choice to carry my full pack the entire distance. Secondly, many of the shelters in those last few nights would have not been able to fit everyone in the rain.

I strongly felt that staying a few more nights in the woods, in the cold, was what I required to feel closure on the thru-hike. As SOBOS, we’d had relatively decent weather for the entire thru-hike up until this point. All the research I’d done on hiking southbound had shared stories of snow in the south and frigid miserable finishes. I craved the opportunity to sleep in a shelter so cold that I’d be slightly miserable.

I hiked to challenge boundaries, test the limits of my gear, and experience all the seasons in the woods of Appalachia. The cold nights and frost-covered leaves will always be fond memories of living the full Appalachian Trail experience.

As a group, we never experienced heavy snow or encountered aggressive bears, and for that I am grateful.

Arriving at the Springer Mountain monument

The last morning on the AT at Stover Creek Shelter was the coldest I’d experienced over the entire thru-hike. Temperatures around 15 degrees Fahrenheit made the water in our bottles slushy and tested the limits of Sawyer Squeeze water filters. Fingertips had to be routinely warmed up as bags were packed up. The privy seat was a little too cold. Yeah, I was ready to be done.

After a slow shelter breakfast, the Hot Mess Express tramily (sans Cheerio who would intentionally summit two days later on the 19th) trained up for the last official three AT miles. At the Springer monument our friend Field Trip fried up some tiny pancakes, we celebrated with champagne, I ate one last Snickers bar, and tramily member Marshall ate a half-pound gummy bear he’d carried since Virginia. We were done.

I’d hiked thousands of miles with these human beings. We’d all started solo and met along the journey. We woke up each morning to smiling (or grumpy) faces. Ate numerous meals together, had thousands of conversations, and shared millions of moments.

On a personal level, some may remember I started the AT with very small goals due to chronic knee and shin splint injuries. My initial plan was to hike at least the 280 miles of Maine, possibly New Hampshire, and everything after would be a bonus. As confident as I was in my desire to thru-hike, I’d been in BONUS territory since July. I never actually thought I’d make it to Springer.

When the going gets tough

I’m not here to say that anyone can hike the Appalachian Trail. It’s extremely demanding both physically and mentally, requires a lot of time and money; and unfortunately, off-trail life continues in a way that can’t be put on pause. It was common to joke about thru-hike-ending injuries. Or to have serious discussions on potential situations at home that would pull us away. We knew that every moment on the trail was special. After experiencing the hardest part of the trail first, it’s truly the SOBO mentality to approach each new section with an open heart and positive mindset.

In Massachusetts, around mile 600, I committed to finishing the thru-hike unless injuries made continuing impossible. And then the terrain in New York hit me in such a way where, for the first time, I questioned if I had the mental fortitude to continue. There was one day in New York where the only thing that kept me moving was the conclusion that challenging days would only make Springer more rewarding. One foot in front of another, the small and large goals, and side quests. Oh, the side quests. Better days always arrived.

Then, abruptly, I was standing in front of the monument on Springer I’d worked so hard to reach. All of those challenging days were just beautiful tiny stars in the universe of my thru-hike. They existed for a purpose but were not the entire journey.

Amicalola and Atlanta

The Approach Trail was an epilogue to the AT. I choose to hike it mostly solo, listening to the songs that had become a soundtrack to the experience. (My earbuds were always close by for music, podcasts, or audiobooks.)

The group met back up just before the last mile. Together we skipped down the metal stairs along the falls of Amicalola State Park. The walkways were crowded with day hikers dressed in street clothes; they eyed us happy, dirty, woods people with confusion. I felt the first sense of not belonging. No one recognized we had just hiked from Maine.

It’s funny how that works. Once you’re not on trail – you ain’t on the trail no more. Non-hikers regard the distinctions a bit differently. The smelly pack, scratched-up trekking poles, mismatched and threadbare clothing, unkempt hair, unshaved legs, and dirty shoes. The pride I get from these items makes my heart burst.

And on that note, we were shuttled back to a hiker haven of Above the Clouds Hostel in Suches, GA, where we celebrated successful finishes with other thru-hikers we’d last seen in Maine – another rendition of how the trail works in mysterious ways.

The next day, four of us continued onto Atlanta. (A huge thanks to Lucky from Above the Clouds!) In Atlanta, we saw more thru-hikers from the larger SOBO bubble who had finished a few days prior. We gathered at a park and later took over two large tables at a bar. A tramily member who got off-trail in the Whites, Palette, met up with us to reminisce. At midnight we headed on to the Atlanta airport to break out sleeping pads in a terminal for a few hours of sleep.

One last teary goodbye was shared with Photo Op, Gnarley, and Swift as I boarded a plane to Florida to see family before heading back to Buffalo. This journey had officially come to an end. I would be forever changed. Forever a thru-hiker.