The Long and Winding Road…To The Trail (sing that in your best Paul McCartney voice)

 Hiking on the AT is one challenge, getting to it is another.  Before you even start, you have to make the decision, Approach Trail or no Approach Trail?  In Amicalola Falls State Park there is the visitors center and the place you can officially log in if you are going thru hike the trail.  The thing is, you then have to hike about 9 miles of trail to connect you to the AT that aren’t apart of the AT before you get to the trailhead.  For most section hikers with time constraints, you skip the approach trail and get your feet right onto the AT and that is exactly what we decided to do.

We took our obligatory photos under the famous stone arch, bought the kids t-shirts, and stayed the night at Amicalola Lodge for one last delicious meal and comfy sleep.  It was gorgeous!  Maybe we should scrap the hike and just stay at this hotel and go zip lining?  My dad’s best friend from the Coast Guard, Pat, has a hunting cabin in Ellijay not far down the road and he came up and met us for dinner and drinks and lots of laughs.  The last time I had seen him I was in the 4th grade, so there was a lot to catch up on!  This is who my dad would be hanging with while mom and I were in the woods.

The next morning we ate a hearty breakfast and laced up our boots, it was time to hit the trail.  I knew the approach trail from Amicalola to Springer Mountain was about 9 miles, so I was assuming that the drive to the trail would be about 10 minutes or so.  NOT THE CASE.  I plugged “Springer Mountain trailhead” into the GPS and it said 1 hour… what?  But it’s only 12 miles down the road, that can’t be right?  Dad bravely gets into the driver seat of the Bronco and we are off.  We make the left onto the road that the GPS tells us to and we are immediately on gravel.  10 miles, 54 minutes until you arrive at your destination.  YIKES.  We slowly make our way up the gravel road and it is dead silent in the car.  Truly, you could cut the tension with a knife.  No one said a word and we just continued to climb and climb the dirt road around the mountain bends, I assume we were all silently praying that a car wouldn’t come down from the other direction because I honestly have no idea what would have happened.


I watched the map and every five or so minutes, I would calmly say, “you are doing great dad, 7 more miles to go” …  either this road would drop us off at Springer Mountain, or we were about to murdered.  Either felt just as likely to happen.  Eventually, we made it to the top and pulled into a gravel lot with a handful of other cars.  WE MADE IT TO THE STARTING LINE.  Who knew that would be so stressful!?  When we got out of the car, I said to my dad, “are you more mad at me now or when I threw that party when I was in high school and y’all were out of town?”  No response.  Valid question though.  

 

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