Day 1: Ready, set, go!

Hiked 11.6 miles, tenting outside Stover Creek shelter.

After spending a few days in Atlanta with my friends Rachel and Garrett and their family it was time to head to the trail.  Thanks again so much for giving us a ride to the trail head.

Serious game of toy soldiers going on here folks

We arrived at the Amicalola Falls visitors center around 10 and signed the register as thru hikers #676 and #677 to start heading north (I got a palindrome! :-D ).  After that we officially weighed our packs, took the obligatory pictures, and headed up the approach trail.  Thats right guys, the AT starts at the top of Springer mountain, but you have to get there first.

We couldn't have asked for better weather.  It was sunny and clear with the temperature ranging from 40-55.  You could definitely tell who the northerners were though.  Here I am dressed in a short sleeve shirt and thinking about switching to shorts and we came on people wearing heavy jackets, hats, mittens, everything. 
Anyone who gets to hike in Amicalola Falls, definitely do so, it is stunning.  The approach trail starts out by climbing up Amicalola Falls itself over the course of 604 stairs that crisscross back and forth across the falls.  At the top you get a spectacular view.

View from the top of Amicalola Falls

Bottom of the falls

The rest of the 7 ish miles up Springer is mostly rolling ridge lines, and sets of switchbacks.  I definitely noticed that I'm out of shape but overall it was pretty easy and doesn't hold a candle to new hampshire. 
After 8.8 miles we finally reached the top and saw our first white blaze, our AT adventure had begun!  We had planned to camp at the first shelter but it was still so early in the day that we decided to keep going to the next one, thus giving us a full 2.8 miles of the AT in today.

Top of Springer Mountain!

View From Springer

The shelter is full, in total there are about 14-16 people starting in and around it.  It's going to be a cold night in the 20s and everyone finished hiking early so we splurged and got a fire going.  overall the first day was pretty awesome and everyone is loving the weather and life right now.

Stover Creek Shelter (you can just barely see my tent behind it)

I was hoping to get at least one really good story about silly unprepared people, but unfortunately everyone actually was pretty well prepared.  So I'm going to leave you with this gem.  A guy was talking gear with us and went on a tirade about how he is an environmentalist and doesn't believe in water purification because he doesn't want to kill poor innocent bacteria, and yes he was serious...