Hell is a Staircase

I’m off! The first two days of my trip have been pretty eventful. I read a lot about the approach trail on forums and decided that there was no way I was going to do it. I wanted to get on the AT as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the road to my shortcut was washed out so I had to go up the falls.

 

The hike up the falls was one of the most brutal stretches of trail I have ever been on. There were over 400 steps up a near-vertical rock face I had to climb. Jasper didn’t seem to mind at all. He charged right up and waited for me patiently at each landing.

Once I got past the stairs I had another seven miles of steep climbs to get to the first shelter along the trail. Lucky for me there were two guys there already and they had a fire going when I showed up. The sight of the fire after the cold, snowy climb almost brought a tear to my eye. I bunked in Black Gap shelter on my first night, still a couple of miles short of the first white blaze on top of Springer.

Early the next morning I woke up to see about 6 inches of fresh snow on the ground. It was beautiful but I knew it would make for rough hiking. The trail was hard to follow but Jasper seemed to already know the way. He never hesitated and when we got to a fork in the trail he always picked the right way to go. It was almost like he was tracking someone up to the top of Springer.

On top of Springer mountain I tried to find the register so I could mark our passing but the fresh snow made it impossible to find anything. I refilled my water supply at Springer Mountain shelter and kept walking. We covered almost 10 miles that day through the snow and ice before ending up at Hawk Mountain shelter. There were two other through hikers there waiting for us and two more showed up before the night was through.

That night it got colder than I have ever felt before. At one point the temperature got to about 14 degrees. When I got up the next morning, all of the gear that wasn’t in my sleeping bag was frozen solid. My water bottles, extra clothes, gloves, hat, boots, water filter, and food were all solid as a rock when I woke up. At that point I decided to ditch the trail for a few days while the weather settled down a bit.

So, here I am in a cabin in the hills of Georgia, getting warm and drying out my gear. Jasper has taken up his customary spot at my feet getting caught up on sleep. I still feel good and strong but the cold is just too much to bear right now. Hopefully it will warm up soon so I can hit the trail again. The hiking is beautiful but the camping, at the moment, is hell.