Re[2]: [at-l] Hike the Approach Trail! was New to list- a fe

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>______________________________ Reply Separator
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>Subject: Re: [at-l] Hike the Approach Trail! was New to list- a few s
>Date:    11/16/99 4:27 PM
>
>
>????  What's that all about? Asks one lister......
>
>     *******The AT starts on Springer, sure, but Springer's in the middle
>     of NoWhere. So there's this 8.5 mile approach trail which winds from
>     Amicalola Falls State Park to Springer Mountain. I'm not sure (anyone
>     got Walking with Spring handy?), but it MAY have been the route of the
>     AT before Oglethorpe was nixed as the southern terminus. In any event,
>     it was storied long ago as the hardest piece of trail before Stechoah
>     Gap (a [northbound] day before Fontana, which nobody seems to mention
>     anymore). Pounding, merciless, and the first great cleaver of "who's
>     gonna make it, who's not."
>
>     I wanted to look into any advantage I could in April, 1979. I didn't
>     start my hike from Amicalola Falls, but looking at the map/guidebook,
>     picked up the forest road which crosses the AT about 3.5 [northbound]
>     miles before Springer. That's where my Mommy and my Daddy let me out
>     of the car. (After a HARROWING ride up the mountains -- I'll tell you,
>     boys and girls, for a Connecticut boy who'd only camped in the VALLEYS
>     in the White Mountains, it was a bit of a gut check. REALLY had to
>     question the wisdom of it all, parents tearing up, rain spitting down,
>     wind blowing. AM I NUTS???)
>
>     In April, 1980, I started wondering about that lousy old approach
>     trail. Wondered every year until September, 1993, when I finally did
>     Georgia a second time, this time the right way: I did the approach
>     trail.
>
>     Thus: perfect transition from the rush of Amicalola Falls to the
>     impact of Springer. By the time you get to Springer, you are ready to
>     *truly* start the AT. And you'll never "look back."
>
>     And btw, the approach trail is nothing you won't see a hundred-fold
>     later, and think nothing about.
>
>
>     Do it.
>     Sloetoe
>
>
>
>
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