Appalachian Trail Day 1: 4/3/16

After moving, an illness,  and a week of visiting friends and family, today we finally began our journey on the Appalachian Trail. In total,  we hiked about 10.4 miles today,  but we’ve actually only covered about 2.8 miles of the official AT. We started our hike at Amicalola Falls state park,  and took the approach trail from the upper parking lot,  which was about a 7.7 mile hike all on it’s own up to the beginning of the official AT on top of Springer Mt.

Casey’s uncle Pete and aunt Bonnie were kind enough to house us and feed us the night before the hike. Our last taste of civilization for a few nights.  This morning Pete drove us up to the state park, where we arrived around 12:30. We stopped in at the visitors center,  and checked in with hiker Clarity… I think we were numbers 1245 and 1246 for this year. We then weighed our packs on the scale out in front of the visitors center.  I weighed in at 36lbs including water,  and somehow Casey weighed in at just about 40lbs. We’ve already started thinking about what we can downsize when we get the chance.

The approach trail is no joke.  We were hiking by about 1pm, and found that it’s pretty much constant uphill, with a few downhill portions.  Since it was such a nice day,  about 65 degrees and a beautiful cloudless sky,  there were quite a few people out today.  We passed a few backpackers that I presume were hiking out after a weekend in the woods,  and we passed many other backpackers,  some of whom are also starting their through hikes today. We also got to witness some wildlife.  A flock of turkeys,  big ones,  passed by us on the approach trail.  I wish I could’ve gotten a picture before they hurried away.

We reached the top of Springer Mt by about 4:45, and had to eat a snack of tuna pouches and tortillas. After the almost 4 hours of hiking,  it was a welcome break.  We also signed the trail register on top of Springer.  I counted the entries for 4/3… there were 51 entries today.  I guess there are still a lot of people beginning their hikes.  I’m not entirely sure if it’s just through hikers that sign that register,  but even so… that’s a lot of people on one summit in a single day.

By about 5pm, we were finally on the official AT. We headed downhill for about a mile to Big Stamp gap. There’s a parking area here,  and this is where a lot of hikers actually start the trail when they don’t want to add in the almost 8 mile approach trail.  They’ll just park at Big Stamp gap, back track southbound to Springer,  then head back north and continue on. There were actually a lot of people camped out right next to the parking area, but we continued on for another 2 miles to Stover Creek shelter. We arrived just about 6pm, meaning we covered about 10.5 miles in 5 hours,  which is our typical pace,  and pretty good for someone who was recently pretty ill.

We’re actually camped out a bit below the shelter, in a bit of a more private spot. We were pretty efficient when we arrived.  We set up the tent,  got out our food and cooked dinner right away (mashed potatoes tonight). Then we cleaned up our bowls, filtered some water,  brushed our teeth and hung the bear bag and were in the tent by 7:30. As the sun set,  the temperature dropped,  but we’re cozy in our bags. There’s a stream just down the hill that will lull us to sleep,  and there’s no chance of rain tonight.  We had a great first day of hiking,  and really lucked out with the weather.  It looks like we’ll have a few more good days ahead of us,  so we’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

We also want to thank everyone who put us up and fed us over the last two weeks. Parents, siblings, friends, aunts and uncles. We truly appreciate it.