A Beginning

March 25, 2009
Day 1. Rained all day. Still raining. Stopped at Springer Mtn Shelter, probably should have gone on to Stover Creek, 2.8 miles downhill, but there are a couple nice guys. One creeper, used to be a cop, goes by Spider. Harmless, should be. If the rain goes off and on tomorrow, I might hoof it to Gooch Mtn Shelter, 15 miles. Should remember to get gaiters and another layer for the Smokies. Anyway, Jim and Mofo are cool. Jim goes by Allegheny, nice older gent. But here I am, walking, feeling great. Nothing can stop me in my power.

Hah. I walk up to the frontage of this strange 3-walled structure, peering through rain-impaired spectacles, at the three men standing around their packs. Here they are: the other thru-hikers. Hard not to look at them and think they're already better than you, getting there before, maybe even better prepared. But then a tall one of the bunch leans over and extends his face towards me "Hi, I'm Spider. What's your name?"
Red flag. Who calls himself Spider by choice who isn't a creeper? OK, he could be a climber.
"Sara" I had chosen not to name myself, in hopes that I might meet people who could draw out some core characteristic to cleverly name me, and also because I couldn't think of anything clever to name me.
"Are you doing this alone?" RED FLAG! The one question that everyone told me to lie in answer if asked, and the one time I agreed.
"Umm, I'm meeting people farther up north." Admittedly, I am an awful liar. Good enough to cut the interrogation short and walk into the shelter and climb up into the loft.

The day began much differently than it ended. I woke up in a cozy bed, surrounded by embroidered matching pillow sets under a heavy comforter, looking out a window to a wet and gray morning. At Amicalola Falls Visitor's Center, I had blinders on. I couldn't find the hook to weigh my pack, I didn't see the displays of indigenous poisonous snakes, didn't find words to greet the other hiker who walked in as I was filling out my information in the logbook. Connie asked if I should have a picture of myself filling out the logbook. That seemed like something I'd want to remember, so she photographed me pretending to pen my information, wearing a big goofy wide-eyed grin. Then the Ranger asked if I had noticed the flier on bear activity around Blood Mountain.

"Bear? No I didn't see that." The flier stated sitings around the mountain's Shelter, and gave a number to call if the animal was seen again.

"Oh, I better write down that number, do you have a pen and scrap paper?" He obliged and I carried that post-it with me for the first week in my camera case.
Connie walked over to me, "Sara, are you going to hike up to the Falls? Because there's a road, I could just take you up there." Tempting.

"Thanks Connie, but it's kind of a tradition, I wouldn't feel right about taking a ride now."

"So are you hiking to the Approach Trail?" He was listening!
I nodded. The Ranger spouted his memorized directions.

"To get to the Approach Trail, walk out of the visitor's center, go around to the left, take a left and follow the green blazes. When you see blue blazes, follow those until you get to the white blaze, you're on the Trail."

"Thank you." I had retained none of that besides green. So Connie and I walked outside through one of the many exit doors (making the Ranger's directions all the more confusing) and she asked if I would like a picture of myself under the entry gate. Yes, that also seemed like something I would want to remember. The picture is of an awkward figure dressed head to ankle in black, with a small glimpse of a goofy smiling face visible under the rain slicker brim, and I appear to be making small fists with my all too eager hands. Connie had picked up my poles from the pack-weighing hook; I'd left them there in my over-focused, unobservant state of mind.

Turning around after thanking and hugging Connie goodbye, I walked along the path that led straight up into the fog. I remember there being three paths to choose from, and I don't remember a single sign directing the way I meant to go. I turned around, pointed the way I saw another pack-laden hiker choose, and Connie and the hiker's father nodded and pointed that way.

There were no blazes. I walked up the switchbacks, thinking, I'm hiking and I don't know where I'm headed because it may not be Maine but I'm hiking! I soon passed the other hiker, who I never saw again, gasping on a rock.
"I'm already out of breath. That's a bad thing, isn't it?"
"No, it's okay, you're listening to your body and taking a rest, that's good!" I smiled and bounded along. The steepness was not easy, certainly, but there was adrenaline pumping. The trail to the approach trail was supposed to be stairs, and this was not stairs, but I could hear water, and I was climbing, so I *must* be getting closer to the Falls. The trail emerged upon a gravel drive, where a civilian couple were descending. I turned uphill and greeted them, passing and forgetting them.
The blue blazes began at the Falls, which I couldn't see through the rainy haze that had descended on my ascent.

My recollection of the trail up to Springer Mountain is not exactly fresh. Thinking went something like this: oh this is hard but it's going to get easier, and my shell isn't waterproof anymore, why don't my poles feel natural? left right, get a groove, left right. I'm doing it! I'm alone and will walk alone to Maine. I'm hiking the trail, I flew to Georgia and will keep going, won't stop til Maine, this is it this is it this is it this is it this is it. Oh my god a person! Talk to him, talk to him!
"Hi!"
"Hi, I'm mofo, are you hiking the Appalachian Trail?"
"That's the plan" I had months before that stopped expecting everyone I met to believe I would finish, and wanted to believe it was okay not to finish, so that was the answer I gave. "I'm quitting my job to hike the AT" or "I'm going to not talk to you for six months because I'm going to hike the AT" and when they asked "Are you going to hike the whole thing?" how could I say yes? "That's the plan" was all I ever managed.

"Well you're embarking on an incredible journey. I hiked it years ago." We chatted some more as he waited for his friend Allegheny to catch up. He motioned that I should go on ahead. The rain drove on, I kept walking, wondering how fast, then all of a sudden I was at the top of Springer Mountain. I took pictures at the rock. I took a picture of the first white blaze. It was 2 in the afternoon. To go on or stay? My shell was obviously not waterproof despite the tech wash and dry, and I was colder the longer I lingered. I wasn't tired. But staying at Springer Mountain had become the beginning, a night I would share with so many legends before me. So despite the time, despite Spider, despite the other kids I glimpsed from between the loft floorboards going on to Stover Creek, I stayed and ate undercooked couscous next to Allegheny and Joe.

Before I left for the trail, a number of apprehensions took form. The biggest one was that I would be mocked for not using my stove appropriately, thereby judged as not being prepared for the thru-hike. Strange, as I had had the stove for years. But that's the one that took.

Leftover couscous weighed down my pack until Neels Gap. I made far too much, had tried to make less. And who undercooks couscous? So 5pm on the 25th found me laying in my sleeping bag, trying to sleep, racked with gas pains from the expanding grains in my belly, but I was on the fucking Appalachian Trail. And that's exactly where I would be for a while. How long? All the miles? Until October 15th? Somehow that night I slept.

In the morning, I dressed in my clothes and wet jacket, tried to warm my icy fingers, gathered water (which I vowed never to leave for the morning again) and hit the trail before everyone else. Most I never saw again.