Day 1 Wednesday
We were a bit apprehensive about our first day: the entire contents of our backpacks were still on the floor: including my crazy bulky medi-kit and all the food we only managed to buy in bulk from Krogers. We woke up late after rolling around too much last night and suspected we were late for our last comprehensive breakfast for the next week. We still needed to shake down our packs and organize transport to the Amicalola Falls State Park. The weather looked cloudy and it was cold. To top it up 25 mm of rain was forecasted for the evening.
We were just in time for the last bacon and eggs and eventually lugged our backpacks to reception. So much for the planned optimized packing: the medi-kit was still alive and well in all its bulky glory. What we left behind: my green shirt from antiquity, Kobus’s roll-on from the business class flight and my tattered copy of Dr Zhivago (don’t know why I fail so miserably with Russian novels: on one previous flight to the US I managed to fall asleep like clock work every one or two pages into War and Peace: with Dr Zhivago I at least to read 35 pages).
After Kobus found out that the taxi fare was around $80 the manager, Shelby, offered to give us a lift: she didn’t think the driver had to overcharge us just because we had an accent. Off we went and soon we were listening to some old tunes and learning about the Dogwood with their white four petal flowers which blossom around Easter and the self explanatory Red bud trees. She pointed out the Wisteria covering a patch of trees in lilac splendor.
We signed in at the Amicalola Visitor Centre and walked out the back door through the arch at 1pm: meeting our first fellow hiker, Tim, who hiked all the way from Atlanta since 5’o clock that morning and had 21 days on the trail. We haven’t seen him since. First highlight and a pretty spectacular one: the Amicalola Falls. Apparently the name is one of the last remnants of the Cherokee that once lived here. Just past the falls a young girl showed us a picture of a black bear she had taken on a neighbouring hill earlier that day. We had lunch at the top of the falls and proceeded on the quite scenic hike to Black Gap Shelter.
Eventually the flow of people tethered out along the route. The variation in vegetation became less: we saw some young Trillion plants with their purple centres and spotted leaves and some May Apples which reminded me of young papaya plants. Mostly the woods still looked wintry and grey with a carpet of decaying leaves and some mushrooms.
We met a trail maintainer who advised us to always step over the log steps and not on top of them. One of my highlights of the day: he thinks we’re from Alabama! This after neither the shop assistant in REI nor the Haitian Uber driver could understand what I was saying yesterday.
Passing a few other fellow AT and day hikers we arrived at our first shelter. The shelter consists of a wooden room with 3 walls and a wooden picnic bench. The first hikers to arrive usually stake out their claim on the platform. A standard shelter is also equipped with a wooden privy discreetly located some distance from the shelter and camping spots for a reason. Although one has the luxury of a toilet seat the remains of the day and days past greet you head on when you lift the seat cover. Apparently the trail management is testing a bacterial waste management method beneath the platform. All human waste beneath the wooden toilet platform is only separated from suspecting and unsuspecting hikers by chicken wire. Futhermore, the brave and nervous user must hail incoming traffic with a prominent display of foot and anklework through the gap beneath the wooden wall: otherwise a rather disconcerting meeting might place and distract from very urgent and challenging ventures. Apart from the biofriendly ablution block, trail management has also provided bear cables as a reminder of the all too real possibility of a black bear encounter. Every evening just before dusk several dry bags are hoisted up in the air and out of reach of hungry bears. No food or waste should be left in tents.
Our first night presented the challenge of figuring out how to erect the MSR tent and applying its rain cover. The cover proved to be the most complicated. Kobus also had to make his way halfway down the mountain to get some water for supper. After wolfing down some smash and mini turkey salami sausages with bolognaise sauce and tea, we settled down for a rainy night with thunder in the shadow of Springer Mountain. It’s not a good idea to pitch your tent next to a tree during thunder storms, but seeing as this is in a forest, it’s also impossible not to do it. Our first night’s sleep was interrupted by many lightning strikes, but we were exited to finally be in the woods.