The End and a Beginning

Summit Day. Who wouldn't feel escatic on Summit Day? The morning was bitterly cold, but I didn't care. The snow during the night melted upon hitting my tarp, then froze by morning, leaving a thin layer of ice which I crushed and broke apart as best I could while packing it. The ice that was left would melt during the afternoon, I knew, and eventually I'd have to pull out the tarp for drying and long term storage. If all went well, I would no longer need it. =)

Springer Mountain was about 12 miles away, but the Appalachian Trail was a mere five or six miles away. The Benton MacKaye trail, I knew, would intersect the Appalachian Trail several times those last few miles.

Shortly before the first intersection with the AT, I started slowing down, looking for the intersection ahead rather than blindly running into it. It probably sounds strange, but I wanted to savor the moment I stepped onto the AT. At that point, I will have walked the complete distance from Key West to Maine.

Not to mention that I have a soft spot in my heart for the Appalachian Trail. I spent half a year of my life hiking that trail, and had never come back to visit since I finished.

So I crept up the trail, looking for those famous white blazes, a signpost, or an intersection. I wanted to take a picture of the footstep that would combine my two big hikes.

And I saw it. The trail I followed reached a T-intersection, and a signpost had been erected that read, "Appalachian Trail" with arrows pointing in both directions.

It was an emotional moment for me, and a rather anti-climatic location for it. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about this intersection, and in fact I didn't even recognize or remember it when I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail five years before. My eyes started tearing up, and I felt like a sap for it. I didn't expect this particular intersection to affect me as much as it did, and I was glad no one was around to witness my sentimentality. =)

I took out my camera and took pictures of my feet as I stepped that last footstep connecting my two hikes, and touched the sign marking the Appalachian Trail.

After a short rest, I continued south on the Appalachian Trail and on to Springer Mountain. The Benton MacKaye followed the AT for about a mile, then would veer off on its own, intersecting the AT a couple of more times before ending near Springer Mountain.

So for a mile, I got to hike on the Appalachian Trail, and I was positively giddy about it. =) I hoped I would bump into some thru-hikers heading north--a very real possibility at this time of year.

I only crossed paths with one other hiker, a section hiker from Florida using the trailname Back In the Day. He was a firefighter and hiking with three other younger co-workers, and I guess he always made references to how things were 'back in the day.'

They were out for a few days, but Back In the Day left the Springer Mountain shelter before his companions and was waiting for them to catch up, so we chat for the better part of an hour. It was the first hiker I'd seen since Mortis in Dalton, and I liked the company. =)

I continued on, noting a sign that showed Springer Mountain being 4.1 miles ahead. I was still following the Benton MacKaye trail, however, which my notes showed required a six mile hike to Springer.

Kind of ironic, I thought, since I always considered the AT an incredibily windy path that rarely went anywhere fast. Who knew there was another trail that was even worse?!

When the AT and Benton MacKaye split, I was torn. I wanted to continue following the AT. It was calling to me, but I followed the Benton MacKaye instead with a twinge of guilt and regret in my heart. I was anxious to reach the next intersection with the AT. =)

At the next intersection, I found four prospective thru-hikers taking a short break nearby and practically pounced on them to get their stories. =) There were three girls and a guy--an unusual sight on the trail and a very lucky guy! ;o)

They were all planning to go to Maine, and I automatically started sizing them up trying to guess which ones would be most likely to make it. Their packs looked respectable. Not extremely light, perhaps, but not shockingly heavy either. The guy seemed a bit heavy, but I'd seen people who overweight than him make it to Katahdin. And they all seemed young, strong, and healthy.

I suspected they were all physically capable of making it the whole distance. If any of them quit, it would be because they were tired of the hike. I didn't tell them that, however, and encouraged them in their hike.

When I told them about hiking in from Key West, one of them shyly said they felt a bit 'inadequite' compared to me, which I thought was amusing. "Not to worry," I told them, "you'll get there! I just got a head start! You'll be looking like me in no time."

Thinking about my thick, crazy beard, "Well, maybe not EXACTLY like me," I told the girls as I stroked my beard. "I hope not, at least!" =)

We eventually parted ways, and I headed up the Benton MacKaye once again.

The trail intersected the AT one last time, but I didn't see any hikers at this one, and finally dead-ended at the AT 0.2 miles from Springer Mountain. I'd reached the end of the Benton MacKaye. Now I could stay on the AT, which is where I wanted to be anyhow.

I started creeping up the trail again, like I did when I first reached the AT, wanting to savor that moment when I reached Springer Mountain and the plaque that marks the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.

It wasn't nearly as emotional for me as that first intersection with the AT, however, although I expected it to be. I reached the summit after three and a half months of hiking, nearly 1,900 miles from Key West, with this point as my goal. My hike was officially over.

It was a beautiful day for a summit. Not a cloud in the sky with views that extended for what seemed like a hundred miles.

The only witness to my finish was a caretaker at the top. He held a little yellow notepad where he kept track of the thru-hikers leaving for Katahdin, but made a note of my arrival from Key West. He told me this was his third year as a caretaker, and I asked him how many others he'd met who had hiked in from Key West.

"None."

It didn't surprise me, but the answer did remind me at how utterly lonely most of my hike had been.

But I made it and was escatic--positively jubilant. My hike was over.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow....

By now, I needed to average about 17 or 18 miles per day to reach Springer Mountain in time, which was nice. It meant I could sleep in in the morning and quit hiking early in the day, curl up in my sleeping bag, and enjoy reading a book and cook a hot meal.

So I lingered in the shelter longer than I normally would before hiking out the next morning.

I wasn't especially excited about the hiking, though. The day was beautiful and cool, but there would still be quite a bit of road walks which generally do nothing but depress me. As far as road walks go, it wasn't bad. Dogs didn't chase me along the streets, the roads weren't busy, and no policemen questioned me, and the surrounding terrain was quite nice--but I was thoroughly sick of road walks and dreaded them.

The trail got back into the woods after a few miles which I much appreciated, but I knew it was only temporary and that the trail would return to road walking later in the day, so for most of the day, I just felt blah. I wanted the hike to end.

When the trail returned to road walking, I stopped at the Riverside Restaurant for a late lunch, arriving 15 minutes before they closed. The restaurant wasn't open from 3 to 5, and I actually surprised myself by arriving before three. I'd been walking sluggishly because of my funk and didn't think I'd arrive before they closed.

Not that I needed to eat there--I still had plenty of food in my pack--but I liked the idea of sitting indoors and letting others cook a real meal for me. The one perk to road walking that I actually liked. =) I'd have still traded it away to have stayed in the woods, however.

By the time I left, ominous clouds had started blowing in. The weather forecast called for rain today the last time I had checked, and it looked like it could start at any time.

The trail entered the woods once again, and looking through my data sheet, it appeared my last road walk was now behind me. Nowhere were there instructions to turn on such-n-such road, or to follow a road. Several places it mentioned where I would *cross* a road, but nothing to suggest I'd actually have to follow one, and when I got off that last road, my spirits soared.

"No more &&@^!@# @&!%#ing roads!" I shouted with glee. =) What a relief to finally be done with them.

My pace picked up and I hiked a couple of more miles to a gap on a ridge with a spring nearby.

The wind was bitterly cold and surprisingly strong, so I set up my tarp alongside a log that could act as a wind break. I piled on all my layers of clothes and slipped into my sleeping bag. It was getting darned cold out, and my gut instinct told me this might be the coldest night I'd ever spend on the trail and a good test for the 20 degree bag I picked up after getting out of Florida.

Near sunset, I heard precipitation hitting my tarp. Frozen precipitation. I wasn't sure if it was actually snow or just very small pieces of hail, but there were only trace amounts of it and I put it out of my mind, curled up reading The Bourne Legacy until about 10:00 that night.

I stayed warm throughout the night, and the next morning I lounged around late not wanting to get out of my sleeping bag. "Damn cold!" I thought. "Damn cold."

Then the precipitation started again, this time I could see it was small flakes of snow swirling through the air. Nothing that stuck, but it seemed like Mother Nature wanted to remind me that it was cold outside.

Eventually my bladder forced me to leave my sleeping bag, then I quickly broke down camp and started hiking just to get warm.

The snow grew thicker as the morning progressed, then turned into small pellets of hail which did not immediately melt upon hitting the ground like the snow was doing.

But my spirits soared. I was having FUN again! =) I sang Christmas songs to myself and watched the snow flakes twirling through the air. It's like I could watch the wind itself rather than just the effects it has on the objects it connects with.

By late morning, some of the snow and hail started to collect on the trail, and my feet would make a satisfying 'crunch!' with each step.

The snow was something of a surprise to me since it was never in the weather forecast I saw. Rain the day before, yes, and bitter cold starting today, but it was supposed to be sunny and cold.

But I was glad for the snow. It was new, exciting, and different. I told Amanda before I even started my hike that there was a good possibility it could snow on me at least once once I reached the mountains in Alabama. I knew it could very cold in April in those mountains, and planned for it with warmer camp clothes and the new 20 degree sleeping bag. I was ready, and I was glad that extra preparation could be put to use.

And I much preferred the cold and snow to rain. I hiked all day without an umbrella, more wet from sweat than from the precipation.

And, I thought, I should reach Springer Mountain the next day. My hike was nearly over. The theme song for Rocky ran through my head between Christmas songs as memories flashed through my head. Walking through water, hiking through fire. On roads and trails, over mountains and through air force bases. And now the trail had one last challenge to throw at me--snow.

The snow did stop briefly a couple of times during the day, to melt off before continuing again. But for most of the day, it came down in varying intensities.

I stopped for the night at Bryson Gap. There weren't any significant logs to block the wind or snow, so I carefully set up my tarp perpendicular to the wind, put on all my layers, and curled up in my sleeping bag. I expected another cold night.

The weather forecast, when I last checked it in Chatsworth the week before, predicated tonight would be get down to 30 degrees. That was in low-laying Dalton, however. I figured up in these mountains, it was probably 10 degrees colder than that, perhaps even in the high teens. Definitely a new record for the coldest weather I ever camped in.

But I stayed plenty warm during the night. With my old 40 degree bag, however, it would have been a truely miserable night. As far as I was concerned, that bag paid for itself these last couple of nights.

And tomorrow--if all went well, I'd be standing on Springer Mountain.