Continue reading »]]> Saturday 9/20/08
Trip: 5.2 miles
Elevation: 3400ft (max) 2890ft (min) ~800ft (total accent)
Time: 3h 15m
Temperature: 80 F
Wind: Light breeze
Conditions: Clear, no precipitation, low humidity
Pack Weight: ~30lbs (overnight lodge hike)
Pics
Summary:

After our stay at The Len Foote Hike Inn Friday night, we decided as a group to avoid a backtrack and take the Hike Inn Trail another quarter mile north. It dead-ends into the Appalachian Approach Trail. You have two options at this point – hike north another 3-4 miles to the top of Springer Mountain (and the official start of the Appalachian Trail) or hike south back down the hill towards Amacalola Falls and the parking lot.

Cresting Frosty Mountain at 3400 ft after a short climb up from the Hike Inn Trail made the start of the hike somewhat challenging for the inexperienced hikers of the bunch but from there it was all pretty much downhill on well maintained trail. Not much water on this section compaired to the Hike Inn Trail but it only took the group 3.5 hours to make it back to the parking lot. We ran into several people headed up to the top of Springer Mountain and I think one guy was actually trying to cover the Georgia Section completely.

Appalachian Approach Trail

Continue reading »]]> 1868

Friday 9/19/08
Trip: ~5 miles
Elevation: 3050ft (max) 2990ft (min) ~750ft (total accent)
Time: 3h 20m
Temperature: 80 F
Wind: Light breeze
Conditions: Clear skies, no precipitation, low humidity
Pack Weight: ~30lbs (overnight lodge hike)

Summary:

The Len Foote Hike Inn is only accessible via a 5 mile hike up Springer Mountain. After checking in with the Amicalola Ranger station, you park at the top of the falls and pick up the trail head on the opposite side of the parking lot. 200 yards or so off the start, the trail splits – taking the right fork leads up the Inn, the left fork will eventually spit you out on top of Springer Mountain (which is also the official start of the Appalachian Trail).

This was our first official hike using our new Kelty FC 1.0 Child Carrier. Madeline did great – she had so much stuff to watch on the trail she never got bored. Mel decided she wanted the Kelty so I carried the rest of our stuff up in my Gregory Z55. With temps in the high 70′s and almost zero humidity, the actual hike itself was very pleasant. It took about 3.5 hours for our group to make it to the inn (leisurely pace) and has several planned rest spots. The scenic views aren’t as obvious as certain parts of the AT further north but the N. Georgia forest in late summer is still magnificant.

The Inn is split into 4 levels and offers small but comfortable bunk-beds, a bath house, dining/kitchen room, and a common game/social room. Dinner/breakfast is served family style (very hearty) and everything you do or experience there is based on conservation techniques. The staff reminds you to keep all your electronic gadgets hidden or turned off for the duration of your stay and you can take a very interesting tour of the facility.

I highly recommend this easy hike for anybody in the central/north Georgia area. Plan on making reservations at least 3-6 months out.

Len Foote Hike Inn Trail

Continue reading »]]> I‘ve finally gotten all my notes and pictures put together from our recent adventures on the Georgia section of the Appalachian Trail. Unforetunately, my knees couldn’t handle the prolonged punishment from carrying a 40lb pack and the constant ups & downs so I had to tap out late Wednesday night. It sucks because the issues I was having never manifested during my training hikes but we still had a great time and I learned a ton about long distance hiking. I’ve split up my journal entries by day – you can read more detail on my [Hiking Journal page].

Sunday weigh-in: 218.5 lbs
Wednesday weigh-in: 208.5 lbs
Sunday pack weight: ~40 lbs
Wednesday pack weight: ~33 lbs
Total Mileage: 38 miles
Total Ascent: 7826 ft
Max elevation: 4485 ft

Mark, Scott, and I are already looking at a return date for finishing off the parts we had to miss due to my injury. We’re thinking a long weekend some time in October. With that goal in mind, I’ve got some training I need to do between now and then – most importantly, strengthening everything from my knees down. I’m also going to use hiking poles from the very start and rework my entire packing list in an effort to drop my base weight even further. Oh and I’m changing my diet – it’s time to drop some of the extra baggage.

Springer Mountain – Tesnatee Gap

Continue reading »]]> Wednesday 6/4/08
Trip: 10.1 miles
Elevation: 4485ft (max) 3175ft (min) 2051ft (total accent)
Time: 6h 16m (moving) 4h 46m (stopped)
Moving Avg: 1.6 mph
Temperature: 80 F
Wind: Light breeze
Conditions: Clear, no precipitation
Pack Weight: ~33lbs (2L water, 4 days food)

Summary:

Blood Mountain was definitely one of the coolest parts of the whole hike. The entire peak is nothing but bare rock, fantastic views of the N. Georgia country side and large stands of flowering trees. I’m glad we were headed Northbound though, coming up from the other side would’ve been absolutely brutal. Almost 1.5 miles of nut-kicker ascent across bare rock-face and carved out step-ups. It was bad enough headed downhill. There’s a bypass trail (Freeman Trail) that links Slaughter Creek to the other side of Blood Mountain without having to cross over the hardest parts of the top though.

Neel’s Gap lives up to its reputation. It’s a welcome rest spot for Northbound hikers starting out – just about the 3-day mark and makes for a nice spot to have all your gear re-evaluated by the staff. We watched as the owner worked with an older gentleman on lightening his gear – he went from a base weight of 32 lbs (4 days food but no water) to roughly 22 lbs in 30 minutes of instruction. Pretty cool if you don’t mind paying for the gear changes.

Amazing how much extra stuff we all pack the first time out – even with my base weight of 22lbs (no food or water) I discovered several things I could do to lighten my base weight.

Anyway, not much to tell about the last half of the day. The hiking poles definitely helped but by the 4th day, it was too late to save my knees. The damage was done. Coming down Cowrock Mountain was too much and I was at the point were it felt like I might do permanent damage if I continued. Without question, Mark grabbed my pack and lumped almost 80lbs down the back side of Cowrock – alternating with Scott when he got too tired.

My brothers rock.

6/4/08 Journal entry:
The Ascent to the top of Blood Mountain wasn’t as bad as I expected. The Slaughter Creek campsite was pretty cool except for all the gnats – still waiting for us this morning even after a decent night of wind gusts.

Top of Blood Mountain was awesome! Amazing 360 degree views from about 4500ft – bare rock face and several large stands of flowering bushes.

Trail has been very quiet this morning – we had the whole top of Blood Mountain to ourselves – apparently a bear scare last night drove off everybody but the college couple we’ve been leap frogging with according to their journal entry at the Blood Mountain Shelter.

The descent off Blood was as bad as I expected. The tendinitis in my knees is getting worse and made each step downward slow and painful. It sucks I’m holding Mark & Scott back like this but they have been 100% supportive the whole hike and stick with me the entire time I hobble down these descents.

11:30 am and we finally hit Neel’s Gap. Equipment is a bit expensive but the staff is really nice and very knowledgable – they’ve seen and experienced just about everything the AT has to offer and the people who try to hike it.

Ran into a couple of other guys having similar troubles with their knees. We all sat around and bs’d about remedies – I ended buying a pair of hiking poles and finally got my pair of flip-flops. Expensive but I’m hoping between the advil and the poles, I can manage my knee pain for the last half of the hike.

Had the best tasting hot-dog and coke ever!

Left Neel’s feeling pretty frisky – hiking poles make a big difference going up hill – should’ve had them from the start.

Finally made the call to end it after literally crawling down the back side of Cowrock Mountain. That descent destroyed what little pain threshold I had left in my knees. Mark & Scott lumped my pack down to Tesnatee Gap in turns and once we had a clear signal I called Mel in for a pick up. I tried convincing the guys to keep on going – I would be happy to pick them up at Dick’s Creek gap on Friday but they didn’t want to do any of the trail without me so we all decided to come off the trail.

Took Mel about 3 hours to get to the parking lot at Tesnatee Gap but she was fricking awesome working through all the back roads to get us – we were deep in N. Georgia no-where.

Funny side story:
As we were sitting in the dark (new moon the whole week) watching the fire flies buzz around on the side of Highway 368 – this huge diesel F250/350 pickup rumbles down the road and pulls over right in front of us. Head lights right in our faces, we couldn’t see much of anything.

Out hopped two of the largest Georgia good’ole boys you could ever meet – cut off shirts, denim shorts and surprise … both had open beers in hand. At this point I figured we were in for a drunken scuffle or something worse … nope – the first thing out of the driver’s mouth was “you fella’s want a beer?” As if it was rehersed, the passenger produced 3 ice cold Bud Light beers from beneath his left arm and proceeded to pass them out to us. A quick tap of the cans, some questions about our ride status and they were back in the truck driving off for parts unknown. All with open beers in hand no less.

We spent the next 20 minutes drinking ice-cold Bud Light and laughing about the whole encounter while we waited on Mel. Perfect ending to the hike imo!

Slaughter Creek – Tesnatee Gap

Continue reading »]]> Tuesday 6/3/08
Trip: 12.4 miles
Elevation: 3906ft (max) 2850ft (min) 2356ft (total accent)
Time: 6h 16m (moving) 4h 35m (stopped)
Moving Avg: 2.1 mph
Temperature: 80 F
Wind: Light breeze
Conditions: Clear, no precipitation but very humid
Pack Weight: ~35lbs (2L water, 5 days food)

Summary:

The run out of Gooch Gap towards Woody Gap was nice. Rolling trail with some neat rock formations on the left side and vertical drops off the right. Woody Gap has bathroom facilities and a trash drop and looks to be a popular stopping point for cyclists and day hikers coming up from Suches.

The Big Cedar Mountain ascent was almost as bad as Sassafras Mt. from Monday. Tight, almost vertical stepping switch backs with little wind or relief from the heat and humidity. We spent a bit in the morning enjoying the cool wind and scenic views from the top. Coming up Big Cedar southbound is definitely the easier route over our northbound ascent. Water sources were starting to stretch out the further we headed out of the 3 Forks saddle area. We made sure to top off our hydration bladders at each decent water source.

The last half of the day was spent making the long climb up towards Blood Mountain. We wanted to get as much of the ascent out of the way as possible so we could get to Neel’s Gap as early as possible Wednesday morning. I think we were all looking forward to a hot-dog and coke from the outfitter’s store so the motivation to knock out as much mileage as we could was definitely there.

We met some pretty cool people at the Slaughter Creek camp site (and of course – the troop of girls finally arrived late in the evening – they were pushing on to Blood Mountain shelter). One local hiker who was training for a Colorado Trail hike, showed us his “secret” – a small pipe driven into the Slaughter Creek spring head that let us drink fresh spring water right from the “source” – no filtering needed!

I thought for sure we were going to get some rain but it never materialized. Plenty of late night wind gusts though – helped keep the flies and gnats down to a bearable level.

6/3/08 Journal entry:
Another ass-kicking day for this old man. I’m continually impressed with Mark & Scott’s athleticism and my resolve to take another step – both knees have tendinitis (or whatever) making each downhill step painful.

Good news is my conditioning has improved a bit – each day brings a quicker recovery and less rest after each major climb. Drinking enough water is the issue now – even 100oz per 4 hours isn’t really enough -> I sweat constantly for 9-10 hours a day now.

Tonight we’re camping on a nice rise at Slaughter Creek -> a local showed us his “secret” pipe plumbed right into the base of the spring – water is as fresh as bottled water off the shelf and doesn’t need filtering.

It sounds and feels like rain but we haven’t seen any positive signs yet – maybe tonight in the AM.

Tomorrow we start the real punishment – a 40 min ascent to the top of Blood Mnt. and 1.5 hours of pain-shattering descent into Neel’s Gap.

I might have to come off the trail if the advil doesn’t keep my knees from exploding. I really, really, really don’t want to tap out at this point but the last half of this trip is not going to be easy on my knees.

Good views from Gooch Gap to Woody Gap. Trail was pretty mellow with some awesome scenic views and neat camp sites. The climb from Woody up to Slaughter was rough though. Military academy is off but we’re still playing leap frog with the girls and the college couple.

Tons of gnats and flies here at Slaughter Creek – Mark is a tick magnet btw, so far I haven’t had any on me. Scott’s cooking is kick-ass and so far all my gear is working out great – still need some flip-flops from Neel’s Gap if I stay on the trail.

Good news is my pack gets lighter every time I eat! Bad news is, tomorrow is going to be a pain-train.

Gooch Gap – Slaughter Creek

Continue reading »]]> Monday 6/2/08
Trip: 13 miles
Elevation: 3350ft (max) 2450ft (min) 2788ft (total accent)
Time: 6h 08m (moving) 4h 41m (stopped)
Moving Avg: 2.1 mph
Temperature: 70 F
Wind: Light breeze
Conditions: Clear, no precipitation
Pack Weight: ~38lbs (2L water, 6 days food)

Summary:
First full day with decent mileage. Georgia is famous for it’s constant series of PUDS (pointless ups & downs) – today was just a taste. At this point, it’s evident I need more cardio conditioning but it’s easily managed with interval rest. It’s also quickly apparent you spend pretty much the entire day sweating – which means you spend the entire day drinking water until you’re ready to puke – and then you drink some more. Dehydration is a serious issue at this point if you aren’t careful.

We “camel up” at every water source and Mark & Scott are on me the whole day to keep drinking – its normal to kill a 3L hydration pack before lunch if you’re drinking enough. I’m glad these guys are with me – they drive me when I feel like slowing down or stopping, and they keep me drinking (did I mention you drink alot of water in 80 degree weather hiking up and down GA mountains?). Not much on the scenic views – we’re still climbing up out of the 3 Forks saddle.

Other than Scott having the ground hit him in his hammock, the first night on the trail was uneventful. We keep hearing about all the bears in the area but so far, haven’t seen much of any wildlife beyond the occasional squrriel or song bird. So far, my gear has held up nicely although I need to buy a pair of flip-flops at Neel’s Gap – I forgot my pair from home and I need some camp shoes to give my dogs a break while we set up camp.

6/2/08 Journal entry:
I pretty much got smoked. I think we were all tired at the end but it was an eye-opener for what the rest of the week is going to be like.

Woke at 6am to get on the trail early – hiked for about an hour and then stopped at Long Falls for breakfast and a look at one of the better water fall sites on the GA trail.

Rest of the morning we chased voices from a girl scout troop or something – ate lunch at Horse Gap and prepared to tackle our biggest ascent to date – Sassafrass Mountain. Finally caught our mysterious voices on our way up – 10 or so teenage girls taking a long rest half way up. On the back side we ran into a military academy out for some sort of day hike. 4 seperate squads of teenagers – combined with the girl scouts we had about 30 people spread out along the trail today.

Mark was hoping it was Rangers – we’ve seen traces of them all over the place here in Horse Gap – he even recognized “Cemetary Field” from his days in Ranger School at Camp Merill but no luck.

Rest of the afternoon was a constant leap-frog with the Girl Scouts and the Academy kids. Last 2 miles was brutal -> I have a sore tendon in my right shin – I hope it’s not chronic …

Called Mel tonight to give her an update – it was good talking to her.

Tomorrow is another early start but taking it slow -> we want to set ourselves up for the big Blood Mountain ascent on Weds. Let’s hope my leg holds it together.

3 Forks – Gooch Gap

Continue reading »]]> Today is the day.  My brothers and I start our 68 mile hike through the Georgia section of the Appalachian Trail.  Scott arrives around 1pm, Mark and I are already packed and ready to go.  As soon as Melissa gets off work, we’re packing the car up and heading out to the Springer Mountain trail head. With luck we’ll be on the trail by 4pm so we should have plenty of daylight left to make it to our first waypoint at Three Forks (5 miles from Springer Mountain).

The extended weather forcast calls for a 30% chance of scattered thunderstorms the whole week so I’m hoping we don’t get soaked too bad. Forecasted highs are in the mid 80s and mid 60s for the lows – almost perfect N. Georgia hiking temps.

[SPOT™] released a new service for owners this week – I can now publish a “public” web site URL that links all the “ok” & “track-back” messages sent out from my personal SPOT™. It’s still in beta but it looks like a really neat service:

[Find the Tobers!]

Continue reading »]]> Sunay 6/1/08
Trip: 5.77 miles
Elevation: 3750ft (max) 2650ft (min) 631ft (total accent)
Time: 2h 21m (moving) 1h 53m (stopped)
Moving Avg: 2.5 mph
Temperature: 70 F
Wind: Light breeze
Conditions: Partly Cloudy, no precipitation
Pack Weight: ~40lbs (2L water, 7 days food)

Summary:
Our first day was a relatively short hike. Mel dropped us off at the FSR 42 parking lot on the back side of Springer Mountain, we got our gear on, said our good-byes and started our ascent to the top of Springer (and the AT Southern Terminus). Having missed all the rain earlier that day, the trail was slightly muddy but in good shape. Water apparently wasn’t going to be a problem. Doubling back, we headed downhill for the rest of the afternoon towards 3 Forks.

Today’s goal was a getting settled into our daily routine on our way to 3 Forks while figuring out what kind of pace we could maintain with the heavier pack loads (this was our first multi-day, strenious hike over several days).

I weighed in at 218.5 lbs (boxers only) so we’ll see what happens to my body after 4-5 days of heavy punishment.

6/1/08 Journal entry:
Man what a great start to our hike. Got to the trail head @ 5:45pm but missed a rain storm that passed through earlier. Temps were perfect and the trail to 3 Forks wide and level.

Camping right now next to Frick Creek – wide, fast running water – will be easier to top off tomorrow morning. We have the camp site all to our selves, even found a nice spectre line with a carabiner still attached – Scott thinks he can get it unstuck from the tree it was apparently used as a bear-bag for.

Scott is working with his new hammock (Henneesee Ultra-light), it’s pretty cool but requires some work to get set up and adjusted properly. He’ll be pro by Friday.

Meet some nice people at Stover Creek Shelter but only stayed long enough to cook – we moved on a mile down the trail to camp at Frick Creek without all the crowds. 3 college buddies headed to Virgina, a College couple on break till August trying to go as far as they can in 3 months, and 1 slightly crazy lady telling stories about a black bear that stole all her summer sausages while she was setting up in the shelter. College couple confirmed a black bear and cub sighting on their way up the approach trail so who knows …

New moon tonight so it’s pitch black outside and moths the size of small bats constantly buzzing around our head lamps. Awoke around 11pm to Scott yelling in a slight panic – apparently one side of his hammock tie-off was to a dead tree (didn’t look like it at dusk) – it broke off cleanly dumping Scott about 3 feet onto his butt! Luckily, no injuries just some shock and the fear he was getting attacked by a bear lol ….

Springer Mountain – 3 Forks

Continue reading »]]> Some good news! It looks like my youngest brother Scott will be joining Mark and I on our Georgia section hike! In order to accomodate his RL schedule, we’re pushing the start date back to June 1st, 2008. Right now it looks like Scott will fly into Atlanta late on the 31st – we’ll pick him up right at the airport and then head for our cabin in Ellijay, GA. This will let us get an early start on the 1st since the cabin is only 45 minutes from the trail head.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on reducing some of my pack weight. Right now I’m at roughly 37 lbs total skin-out weight (pack, food, water and worn clothing) – that’s a bit on the heavy side. With the hike getting pushed back into warmer weather, I think I can do better and strip or lighten my pack load down some. After reviewing some weather [history] for Brasstown Bald, GA over the last couple of years, it looks like I can probably drop my 35 degree bag and go with something a little lighter. After some research on bag liners and sleep sacks, I found a perfect summer weight bag, the [REI Travel Sack]. $60, rated to 55 degrees and I can use it during colder weather as a bag liner for my winter bag. It cuts my sleeping bag weight down from 3.5 lbs to 1.5 plus it compresses to almost half the size. Perfect!

Continue reading »]]> On Saturday March 8th, 2008 Mark and I will be hiking the 8 mile lead-in trail. We’re going to start in at the Amicola Ranger Station, hike the 8 miles up Springer Mountain to the AT trail head, camp over night and then return home that Sunday. It should be a great shake-down trip for our gear and nice fitness check for our upcoming week long trip in May.

03/12/08 Edit:

We had to scrub our original plan because the weather forcast for our weekend included a cold snap with snow/freezing rain on Saturday. Mark and I decided we didn’t want to endure those conditions for a simple overnight trip so we changed our plans slightly and headed over to [Ft. Mountain State Park] with the intent of hiking the 8.8 mile Gahuti trail loop on Sunday after a late arrival Saturday night (weather was supposed to clear up by 5pm or so).

Saturday 03/08/08
Elevation: ~2300 feet
Temperature: 25 degrees F (low)
Wind: gusting up to 10 mph or so
Conditions: Clear and cold with snow still on the ground from the earlier storms.
Location: Primitive site #3, west side of the park on a semi-exposed knob
Pack Weight: 36 lbs (4Ls of water, 2 days worth of food, cold weather layers)
Hike distance: .25 miles

Summary:
Cold, cold, and more cold. It made everything difficult to do because we spent all our time wrestling with gloves (ever try to tie a micro-knot wearing fleece gloves?) or fighting the chill. We went in with bags rated to 30-35 degrees F. and ended up both in the same tent curled around Maya (Mark’s dog) for warmth. We were definately at our lower temp limit with regards to gear. I won’t camp in conditions like that again without at least a zero degree bag and better thermal layers. I would say we pushed our safety a bit (had it been raining or lower temps, we would’ve hiked out that night) but it was a good “gut check”. My [Jetboil] did a great job cooking even in the low temps but I need to work on pairing down my skin-out weight to ~30lbs or so with water and food.

The short hike in to the site was amazing – we passed two seperate waterfalls and some great mountainous terrain. It had a great view overlooking the town of Chatsworth and easy access to both the North and South bound Gahuti trail heads. We’re definately coming back in April to hike the whole 8.8 loop when the weather warms up a bit.

Sunday 03/09/08
Elevation: ~2300 feet
Temperature: 23 degrees F (low)
Wind: calm
Conditions: Clear and cold with snow still on the ground from the earlier storms.
Location: Primitive site #3, west side of the park on a semi-exposed knob
Pack Weight: ~ 32 lbs (2Ls of water, cold weather layers)
Total Hike distance: 1.0 mile

After striking camp we decided to call it a day and only hike a short section of the Gahuti on our way back to the car. It was just too cold and Mark had non-insulating gloves on so it was going to be miserable for him if we spent the whole day out in the weather.