Sunday, May 22nd

Amicalola Falls Stairs – all 602 of them

Steps: 4,023

Teresa and I left our hotel to pick up Stevie and Christina at the Moschetto’s around 8:30 am. An amazing graduation party was held there the day before for Ciana, and everyone who attended had a wonderful time! After saying our good-byes, we headed for the Newark Airport; Christina was flying back to Minnesota and of course Stevie and I were flying to Georgia to continue our journey.

Airport check-in was surprisingly easy with my covered pack, however the flight down was turbulent at times. It didn’t help that I sat next to a guy who crowded my space, but fortunately I did have an aisle seat. Once we landed, we took the MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) train to North Springs where our shuttle driver, Jeff Moon, was waiting for us in his jeep. He drove us another hour north to the Amicalola Falls Lodge where we were staying for the night.

To our surprise, the Visitor Center had been recently demolished (one week prior actually) along with the Ampicenter. However fortunately, the iconic Arch was still there. The lodge was up the hill a short way; it was absolutely beautiful, and the views spectacular. We checked into our room, dropped off our stuff, then slack packed the Fitness Trail along with a connecting trail back downhill to the Arch (~1 mile down). We took pics, then proceeded to climb the 602 stairs up through the Falls. ABSOLUTELY STUNNING!!

This was considered the “Approach Trail” which lead to the top of Springer Mountain 8.8 miles away (the official start point for the AT). The staircase was not bad at all, however we weren’t carrying our heavy packs and we somewhat had our legs at this point having hiked 573.5 miles already. We did sweat pretty good, after all we were burning some serious calories and it was 84 degrees out.

Later that evening, we ate dinner at the Lodge – salad, prime rib au jus, chicken medallions, veggie lasagna, au groton potatoes, peach cobbler, etc. We bought some extra snacks because we did not stop to stock up along the ride there, which we should have because we needed propane. The Lodge did not sell fuel so we would be eating cold food until we reached Neels Gap in two days to buy a few canisters. We had a spacious room with AC (it was hot, then cold….) and we got to bed by 9:15 pm.

My gut tells me that this southern portion will be an interesting section of trail, and it is expected to rain for several days starting tomorrow!