Main | Trails | Journal | Gallery | Links

The Approach Trail

Saturday, December 16, 2000
Day 1

With rain dripping from the brim of my cap and headlamp, I stumbled upon two tents in the darkness. A flood of questions filled our heads as we finally realized that we had stumbled into the camping area at Black Gap. A group of hikers had apparently set up camp and were content and dry inside their tents. Lucky us, we were out in the pouring rain and pitch black darkness high up in the mountains of North Georgia. Doubling back on ourselves, we finally discovered the shelter nestled to the side of the trail and enshrouded in fog and rain. Over twelve hours earlier, our trip had began with high spirits in Charleston, South Carolina. Early that morning, we headed north from the Holy City to the Upstate of South Carolina. My parents had agreed to drop us off at the trailhead and pick us up further north along the AT. From my parent’s house, we had a two hour car ride to Amicalola Falls State Park in North Georgia. It was a dreary afternoon with a steady rain and fog encapsulating the environment in which we were to embark. At the state park, we signed in and then drove up to the top of Amicalola Falls where we began our trek. It was around two in the afternoon and a steady cold, rain was still falling as we put on our packs and made last minute adjustments. From the top of the falls, we had roughly six miles of uphill hiking along the Approach Trail to Black Gap Shelter. The Approach Trail is approximately seven miles from Springer. Most AT hikers drive up a forest service road near the summit of Springer bypassing the pretty grueling seven mile Approach Trail. I have heard that many hikers who have high hopes of thru-hiking the AT give up on the Approach Trail. That was little comfort to us since we had only a short amount of time before dark to hike this difficult section of trail. As we headed north along the Approach Trail, we quickly warmed up and we were actually shedding clothes. Hong and I made fun of David’s pack. He had an external frame pack. The pack cover made him look as though he was wearing a giant, blue-gray sail. The canopy of the trees shielded us from the wind and rain and for the most part, it was an enjoyable hike. Who am I kidding? It was a tough hike all uphill. Despite the pain in my legs and back, it was satisfying to be pushing my body to its limits and beyond. David set a blistering pace up the climbs and rested every fifteen minutes or so to let Hong and myself catch up. He was in the best condition of the three of us and he seemed to be enjoying himself much to my disdain. By 5:30 PM, we were still a couple miles shy of the shelter. The darkness of night and a dense fog began to settle in amongst the trees. We were eventually forced to use our headlamps but still had difficulty seeing due to the fog. On several occasions, it was difficult knowing exactly where the trail was heading. We had to search around for the blue blaze on the trees to make sure we were actually on the Approach Trail. As we climbed higher onto a ridge top, we saw a flashing light to our right. We thought we were imagining things, but we soon realized that it was lightning. It was really eerie with the fog, rain, and now lightning. It looked like we were hiking in Sleepy Hollow and at any moment the headless Hessian would storm by any second in search of his nightly prize. A storm must be brewing, so we picked up our pace. Around 7:00 PM, we finally arrived at Black Gap. The shelter was wet and muddy and full of gear. The guys in the tents had strewn their gear all over the shelter. Apparently, they didn’t expect anyone else to be hiking up the mountain that evening. We decided to pitch our tent in a small clearing near the shelter. I was kind of hesitant about using the tent since it is only a two-man mountaineering tent. However, all three of us managed to squeeze inside and we placed all of our gear in the vestibule. After setting up the tent, we headed down to the shelter to cook a quick dinner. We had planned on building a fire and cooking a dinner of chicken, potatoes, onions, and carrots wrapped in tin foil. However, with all the rain, we were in no position to build a fire. We cooked the chicken and vegetables over the camp stove and had a nice meal in the mouse-infested, muddy shelter with a steady rain pelting down on the roof of the shelter. It was around 9:00 PM so we decided to retire to the warmth and dryness of the tent and get a good night’s sleep. We anticipated that the weather would cool down overnight with a chance of the rain changing over to frozen precipitation, but the only thing on our mind was sleep and rest.

Previous Page | Next Page