This past week my work took me into North Georgia, so I decided to drop by the Appalachian Trail for a couple days since I was only 15 miles away. The plan was to park at Woody Gap and hike southbound to Amicalola Falls State Park (approximately 30 miles) where I would meet a buddy from college who just so happened to be coming out with a group from Texas to hike the exact same section in reverse.
I woke up early on Wednesday morning and began the drive from North Alabama to the trailhead. Unfortunately, things like time zones don't always work correctly in my mind. I began my drive thinking I would be gaining an hour by heading East. Sadly, I soon realized that I had been thinking of time incorrectly in all of my planning. As a result, I finally arrived at the Woody Gap trailhead and hit the trail at 11:30am after a quick gear check.
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Despite my lost time, the weather was absolutely spectacular on that first day of hiking! Though I'd hiked to Springer Mountain from the park on the approach trail many times before, this was my first time on any of the official AT in Georgia. The majority of the NOBO through hikers had already started their trips this year, but I still ran into quite a few folks as I traversed against the flow of traffic. By the time I reached Hawk Mountain to spend the night I had encountered 77 hikers (and five dogs) along the way.
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Because of the traffic, the Hawk Mountain shelter was pretty slammed with traffic. Fortunately, I had no intention of sleeping in the shelter. Instead, I found a great camp site right at the intersection of the shelter access trail and the AT itself, and it was all mine! I set up camp and enjoyed a relaxing evening of more amazing weather.
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On this trip I decided to try instant potatoes in a quart sized freezer bag for the first time for dinner. I am now wondering if I will ever eat anything except potatoes on the trail. Instant potatoes, a little dry milk, some butter flakes, and some chopped up bacon is simply incredible after a long day of hiking! Seriously, I don't think I've ever enjoyed a trail meal as much as I did that night on Hawk Mountain. I am officially an instant potato convert on the trail.
After a good night sleep I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of oatmeal and coffee before packing things up. Because of my late start on Wednesday, I had only hiked about 12 miles on that first day, which meant I had 17 left. The weather cooperated wonderfully once again and I made good time. I covered the remaining eight miles to Springer Mountain and enjoyed a light lunch on the summit while watching everyone take their selfies at the Southern terminus of the AT.
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From Springer I began the decent to Amicalola Falls State Park. I've hiked this approach trail several times before, so I was pretty familiar with this stretch. Eventually I was greeted with the roar of the falls and the joy of the decent down the steps. If you haven't had the pleasure of walking up or down the steps at Amicalola Falls, you are missing out! There are 604 steps that connect the lower and upper falls. It's a grueling way to start or end a day of hiking.
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With the steps behind me, I made my way down to the visitor center to wait for my buddy from college. During the wait, I talked to some of the folks working at the park to determine the hammock camping options within the park. Based on my research here on the forums, I was under the impression hammocks were allowed around the shelter within the park on the approach trail. I can now report that information was incorrect. You are not allowed to hang a hammock anywhere in Amicalola Falls State Park, which was pretty disappointing to me. As a major starting point for long-distance hikers on the AT, one would hope they would adopt a policy that's a little more hiker friendly given the increasing popularity of hammocks.
Honestly, the shelter was pretty full in the park and so I was just planning to hang my hammock anyway because I was pretty frustrated. In the end, my reason got a hold of me and I decided to abide by the rules and hiked the 1.5 miles out of the park and back into the national forrest. There were only a few problems with that. First, that meant I had to go back up the 604 steps to the top of the falls (yay!). Second, it was already getting pretty dark by the time I made this decision which meant I would be doing some night hiking and setting up camp in the dark for the first time. A wiser man probably would have stopped there, but I am not a wiser man!
Not going to lie, hiking back out of the park in the dark was creepier than I anticipated. I've done a little headlamp hiking in the past and was pretty familiar with this trail, but it was still a very unique experience. To make it even better, we had spotted a black bear early that day near the falls, so all I could think about during the first part of that hike was running into a black bear in the dark on an enclosed staircase. Fortunately, that didn't happen. I eventually reached the park boundary and found a campsite within five minutes.
Setting up the hammock and tarp in the dark was actually a lot of fun. Things went pretty smooth and I finally crashed into my hammock after a very long and exhausting day on the trail. Based on my running watch, I had logged 54,040 steps that day. Definitely a new record for me! As I laid back in the hammock and closed my eyes, I fell asleep to the wonderful sound of falling rain.
I woke up early the next morning and packed up quickly and hiked back to the park to meet up with my college buddy. Of course, this meant I had to do the steps yet again (yay!). I shuttled their group up to Springer Mountain where they would begin their weekend hike and then drove up to Woody Gap to swap vehicles, pulling into the parking lot just after noon. In just over 48 hours I had completed my 30 mile section hike, experienced a bonus extra hike (in the dark) to adhere to the park hammock policy, traversed the steps three times, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.
Not a bad way to spend two days!
Hewitt
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Originally Posted by johnspenn
Congrats on the nice trip and more so the shape you are in to do those steps up after that kind of miles. Thanks for sharing your trip with us. Do you have that instant potatoes recipe you can share with us? Thanks again your fellow Huntsvillian.
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