As I mentioned last month, this September my father, cousin and I are heading to Yosemite National Park to spend three days on the John Muir trail.  In preparation for this adventure, my dad and I are trying to do one backpacking trip a month until then in addition to personal training and preparation on our own time.

This month we went more for distance rather than incline. We were actually originally going to go from Gooch Gap to Three Forks, totaling 24 miles, but due to some physical issues we paired it down to 18 miles from Springer to Sassafras.

Short Version

Both of us had a great time on this trail. Typically we both prefer loop trails as opposed to asking back over the same paths in one weekend, but it was still fun. There’s multiple of shelters to stay in as well as a good amount of water available – just make sure you’re filled up once you leave Hawk Mountain (there’s none available from there to Sassafras).  It’s a challenging hike, but can be evenly split into a 20-miler, 10 each day.  There’s lots of places to camp at all the major points (I assume this goes for Sassafras as well, though we only made it halfway to the top).

Long Version

Friday:
We drove up to the Springer Mountain parking lot around, arriving around 9ish after a wrong turn on the road.  We always use the same map to get to this section of the AT, and each time it seems like we get lost in a different way; this time we missed the turn onto SR52 West.  D’oh.  One of my favorite things about this map is how sketchy it is.  One of the first directions reads, “Turn right at an old store with a partial saying ‘Store’…”.  It had been about a year since we’d been here and until we figured out our driving error we actually thought the ‘Store’ might have been demolished or burned down.  Luckily not.

Since we were getting in so late we actually got to see a fair share of wildlife including an owl, deer and, to top it all off, bears!  With the high-beams on the car we were able to catch a glimpse of a momma bear and 2 baby bears dashing across the road as we pulled up.  At first one baby bear actually ran to the opposite side of the road from its sibling and mother…only to dash back across the road to join them a moment later.  It was a pretty adorable scene…plus an additional warning that yes…there are definitely bears in dem hills.

After arriving at the parking lot, we were greeted with a warning of high bear activity (which we now definitely believed).  Of course, while we’d just bought a bear canister (they’re required for backpacking in Yosemite), we didn’t bring it with us – so much for being prepared!  Regardless, we were off for the night and hiked in 1.5 miles to the Stover Creek shelter (which is very nice, by the way, and I highly recommend staying a night there if it’s in your path).  Besides having a well-made and big shelter there, it also has a mouldering privy (score) and multiple sets of bear bag lines that make is super easy to hoist your smell-ables high into the air a decent distance from the sleeping area.  Additionally Stover Creek has a covered picnic table, which is a nice extra convenience, and water access if you need to fill up your Nalgene (though it’s not super-accessible and it might be easier to wait til you continue north up the trail instead of traipsing down the water path).  Finally if you’d prefer to not sleep in the shelter there are a couple nice flat places for tarp-ing out or pitching a tent.  Fun for everyone!

There were 5 or 6 people there already, one of whom contained a powerful set of lungs, just right for hardcore snoring. After inappropriately breaking into giggles and yielding an embarrassed apology from his wife, we fell asleep.  It was surprisingly cold (55-60F?), but nothing a jacket or a pair of socks couldn’t handle.

Saturday:
Saturday our original plan was to walk to Sassafras Mountain and then back to Hawk Mountain shelter.  We left Stover Creek shelter 10 til 7am and started out on our way.  We struck a surprisingly strong pace on our way out and made excellent time that morning, probably due to both our freshness and it being quite cool, despite a bit muggy.  We passed through Stover Creek and Three Forks within the hour.  Three Forks we had actually seen last year when going trough the Benton MacKaye trail, and it was just as pretty.

After Three Forks the upwards inclines started, but nothing too terrible at that point.  On our way upwards we ran into the trail for Long Creek Falls.  From the map it looks like it should be right on the trail, but in actuality  if you want to see it you have to follow a short (we’re talking like, 2 minutes) offshoot.  The falls are small, but worth taking a look at since they’re so close to the trail.  It’s a great place to pick up water, take a break, or even set up camp.  There’s not an abundance of level area, but if you’re only staying one night that probably isn’t a big deal.  Just remember guys – don’t be lame and camp right in front of the falls.  Just because you got there first doesn’t mean you own that area; it’s not like you called in early to get the Waterfall Room on the AT – give the rest of us a look.  This is obviously a pet peeve of mine…these are public places to share with everyone who passes by, and I don’t think anybody should have to feel like they’re invading someone’s campsite just to take a look at a well-marked waterfall. /rant

 

Continuing up past Long Creek Falls we walked past Hickory Flats Cemetery.  This wasn’t specifically marked, but we assumed it was the area around a large field full of high-grass that we walked past.  We didn’t venture into it (for fear of ticks or alien abduction – you decide which is worse), but it was pretty in the morning light.

The walk continued rather uneventfully to and past Hawk Mountain shelter and then down into Hightower Gap.  By this time it’d been around 2.5 hours since we’d started, so it was around 9:30am, still excellently cool…which was good because here, the trouble began.  Our plan was to hike for approximately 3 miles and take a break to eat lunch on top of Sassafras Mountain (everybody likes a meal on a mountain top, right?).  Unfortunately we ran into a bad case of “old map syndrome.”

What is OMS, you ask?  It’s a name I just made up for an issue that I have no doubt others have run into – it’s when the map you’re using as a reference is so old that it’s actually completely incorrect.  See, on our elevation map the ~1.5 mile section from Hightower Gap to Horse Gap – the area just before the ascent to Sassafras Mtn. – showed as having absolutely no elevation gain; in fact, it showed that we would be losing elevation.  If you take a quick look at the map above, you can see how horrifically wrong that is.  What we assumed would bean easy descent that would probably take half an hour turned into an hour’s long journey of sharp ups and downs that we had no names for.  This is what happens when you use maps copyrighted in 1998.  Just saying.

After that exhausting and surprising trek to Horse Gap we unfortunately only made it halfway up Sassafras Mountain instead of the whole way to the top.  Both of us were low on energy, and additionally I was foolishly running out of water and my father’s knee was starting to bother him.  Since we knew we had all the ups-and-downs to go back over we decided to save Sassafras for another day and ate lunch on the trail, then turned around to go back down the mountain.

One interesting thing we ran into was a group of volunteers from the Georgia AT club servicing the trails.  It was pretty cool to watch their work, and we let them know how appreciative of it we were.  Their work was pretty serious business too; they were stripping logs of their bark, then hauling them and large rocks up the steep trail to set up proper rain drainage and steps for hikers.  Plus, interestingly enough, the volunteers seemed to be populated mostly with older folks, so it wasn’t just strapping young people doing this heavy lifting.  Again, a big thanks to them and all the work they do.

So we hauled our butts back over the mystery-elevation missing from our map.  The good news was that there was a strong breeze to help us along for most of the time, which definitely made the extra elevation changes more bearable.  Around 1pm we made it – exhaustedly – to Hightower Gap, then up the last half mile to Hawk Mountain shelter, which where we’d originally planned to stay for the night.

Hawk Mountain shelter is a good stopping point, though not quite as nice as the one in Stover Creek.  It’s not as new and doesn’t have a covered picnic table, but there’s still a mouldering privy, bear bag cables, water access, and a bunch of camping areas as opposed to Stover Creek which only has about 3.  The shelter is .2 mile past the trail, but once you’re there it’s all the comforts of home.  Here we tossed down our packs and rested for awhile, used the facilities and refilled our water bottles (the creek’s only a few minutes walk from the shelter, and is even equipped with a PVC pipe, which is convenient, if that kind of thing floats your boat).  Despite all these comforts and our sore legs, we finally decided not to stay there.  Why, you might ask?

Partly because of the cat.

We’d talked to another hiker we passed on the trail who mentioned there was a “good looking cat” at Hawk Mountain shelter (apparently he fed it grits and pork rinds…odd) and my father was instantly less interested in staying there.  It’s not just that he isn’t a “cat person”…his dislike of cats is less of the “I just don’t like them” variety, and verges more into the territory of a crazy person.  Phrases as oddly generic as “they’re sneaky” and as bizarrely specific as “they stick their tail down your throat while you sleep” have been bandied about enough times to where I try to stop asking where the hell they come from.

To be fair the cat was pretty dirty and I have no doubt it had fleas.  Still, I found it pretty intriguing.  As soon as the cat heard us coming, it hopped off of the picnic table, boldly approached us, and started meowing, asking for both attention and food.  My father avoided it like the plague, but I was willing to give it a scratch behind the ears, which it appeared to enjoy and purred excessively.

Still, with the weird cat plus the fact that it was still early in the day, we decided to continue back to Long Creek Falls and stay there for the night.

The walk to the falls was uneventful, and we were pleased to see that no one else was there when arrived; this gave us our pick of camping spots.  We’d decided, for weight’s sake, not to bring an entire tent and instead bring the fabled “Noah’s Tarp” Dad picked up at an REI scratch-and-dent sale.  We’d tarped out with it before without any problems, and we didn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work a second time…assuming we didn’t get caught in a downpour.

It’d been breezy all day, in fact, but thinking ahead, Dad had us close off the west side of our tarp so any incoming storms (incoming, presumably, from the west) would be substantially blocked and we’d stay dry.  We had a pretty sweet setup using trekking poles to prop up the corners.

Luckily the rain didn’t hit until we’d already cooked up and finished dinner (tortellini with sun dried tomatoes and chicken…classy).  We shuttled all our gear under the tarp and for the first 20 minutes or so, everything was fine.  But when the rain started really coming down, things started to go awry.  The wind picked up and started pulling up the stakes and the rain started blowing sideways getting us wet underneath the tarp, too.  No matter what we did to stabilize it a bit better, the wind ended up pulling it up and everything we had pulled out got soaked.  After about an hour of huddling under the tarp, we figured it was time to pack it in and head to a shelter – even if we had waited until the rain completely stopped there would have been no way to stay dry for the rest of the night.  So with soggy clothes and taped up toes (I got some blisters – blast!) we headed back again to the Stover Creek shelter.  It was only a 2.5 mile hike, so we figured we could make it.

Probably because we’d had time to rest up and have a good meal it wasn’t a bad walk back to the shelter; it only took us around an hour and a half to get there, which meant we arrived around 8pm.  There we met another group of people who good-naturedly gave us a hard time for getting caught in the rain and graciously made room for us in the shelter (as my father pointed out, “Have you ever met a grumpy backpacker before?”).

One of the men we met there was actually a ridgerunner nicknamed “Razor” who talked about what it was like hiking the trails and some of the ups and downs of hikers (trash is apparently rampant, which I guess I find surprising and not surprising at the same time).  It was an interesting evening chatting with people and it was definitely nice to have a dry place to sleep.

Sunday:
Sunday was completely uneventful.  We got up, had a hearty breakfast of quinoa cakes (a new experiment of mine…not bad!) and hiked the last 1.5 miles back to the car.  It was disgustingly muggy after that previous night’s rain, but the incline was marginal and it took us less than an hour to finish up.

So like I outlined in the Short version…this was definitely a fun trip.  I’d like to go back and tackle Sassafras Mountain again for real, this time knowing already what the elevation is going to be like.  It was muggy, but really in Georgia there’s no getting away from that unless you only want to backpack for half the year.  I love hiking the AT and have never, to the best of my recollection, been disappointed by its views and challenges.  This was a good conditioning hike for us since it had both length and varying elevation.  Great for moderate to experienced hikers.