WhimsySeasons: On December 12

Finally, hiking! From highway 42 to Springer Mountain to Hawk Mountain Shelter.
Miles Hiked: 8.8

I slept in this morning at the hotel in Blue Ridge and met Subman mid-morning when I returned the rental car. He drove me to Amicalola Falls State Park and we parked at highway 42 which is a mile North of the terminus. We left our things in the car and hiked up to the summit.

At the summit we met eight thru-hikers who timed their ending to be at 12:12 pm on December 12, 2012. It was fun to see eight people who had walked all 2,184 miles. Some of them had started on Katahdin about a week before I started this summer. It is interesting to think about how my last five months have been different than theirs. I am glad that I have made the decisions about hiking (and not hiking) that I have.

So many people on the trail talk about Springer Mountain with great majesty or awe. For many it is the place that marks the start of their epic journey, for others it marks the end. One of the thru-hikers today said that he did not want to touch the Springer sign because it would mean his hike is over now. It is a place that has legendary stories in people's emotional landscapes if they thru-hike the trail. But for me, because it is not the beginning or the end, it felt different. For me this is mile 701. Somewhere around the 1/3 mark of finishing the trail. I imagine it must be similar to be a catholic person and visit a Buddhist sacred monastery or to be a pagan person and visit a Jewish Synagogue. You understand that this place holds sacred for many people, and you can feel that and you can respect it, but for you, it is simply a beautiful place to be honored but not revered. That is how I felt today at Springer Mountain.

Then Subman and I hiked back to the car, picked up all of our gear, and hiked about six miles to Hawk Mountain Shelter. At the shelter I met Tonka and his dog, Zues, who are hiking North to VA to experience witner hiking weather. Tonka, Zues, and I stayed in the shelter and Subman set up his tent nearby with his dog, Pepper. Hawk Mountain Shelter is in Chattahoochee National Forest lands. However, nearby there is a U.S. Army Ranger student center and the Rangers use this land two weeks out of the month in their training drills. So about an hour after dark (the sun sets at 5:30 and it is dark at 6:00 pm) a soldier came through to inform us that in another hour 60 students would be coming down the path. I don't know where they came from or where they spent the night, but indeed, about an hour later, running through the dark, a crowd of uniformed, armed soldiers ran past the shelter. I am thankful that I was at the shelter with two men (one an ex-Marine) and two hiking dogs, and not alone tonight. We also heard pretty constant firings from the other side of the gap which Subman informed me were cannon practice shots. He said that he has camped at Hawk Mountain more than a dozen times and often he sees the Army Ranger students, but he has never seen as much activity as we saw and heard tonight. I'm guessing that it was sometime after midnight when became more quiet in the woods and I fell asleep.

At 2:15 AM Zues began to growl and bark, which awakened me quickly. Spiced Nutz, a thru-hiker, came into the shelter and set up his sleeping bag. He said that he planned to meet his dad the next day at Springer Mountain and he had night hiked because he wanted to be sure to be close enough to complete his hike tomorrow. And that sums up my first day back on trail, and my first full day in GA.

In the hotel breakfast room was this decorated Christmas tree. I've never seen Peacock Feathers as a tree-topper before.