A little over a month ago I graduated from UK, and a couple weeks ago I drove south to Georgia to work on a prescribed burn crew for the first third of this year. I took I-75 and pushed my pedal to the floor once I hit the climb out of the Kentucky River valley. Still a little heartbroken and dazed about leaving the job I’ve had for the past year, working as a stewardship tech at a nature sanctuary set up against that slow, faithful river. Feels like I still had a lifetime to learn from those 347 acres.
Now I live in a town of three thousand people, 20 minutes away from Yonah Mountain, where I go run after work among scampering squirrels and trees with their buds dormant and cloaked in winter scales. A week after snow I ran to the bare side of the mountain top, where precipitation running off the peak was still frozen in the impression of a waterfall. Plodding back down bathed in red rays, red suneye between the hickory branches.
This past weekend I set out on my first backpacking trip of the year. Saturday morning, I drove up graveled Forest Service Road 42 near Blue Ridge, Georgia, up to the trailhead for the southern terminus of the Benton MacKaye trail. Starting on the side of springer mountain, I first took the Appalachian Trail to its first meeting with the BMT. Here the two trails diverge. They criss-cross one another a couple times walking north from Springer, with the AT ultimately heading east and the BMT heading north to Tennessee.
I got to Three Forks sometime after lunch. Intermittent stretches of ice and snow remaining from a week-old snow event demanded careful footwork, especially in this section. This hallway past ice-fringed cascades is a busy day hike destination, but there’s a big broad campsite by the creek that would be nice for a short overnight. At each waterfall, rhododendron nodded into the spray, & boulders offered sittin spots to sore hikers.
After long creek falls, the BMT and AT diverge again; they cross once more on the southern border of the Great Smoky Mountains national park. I followed the Benton MacKaye up past a grassy bald and two discarded ammo belts. That night I made camp up on the ridge after No Name Gap. Serene gold light beamed through the trunks and branches while I made dinner.
That night I dreamt that a wild hog was accosting my hammock, and I came to wildly thrashing in my cocoon. I promptly fell back asleep. Winter backpacking means no insects, fewer people, and better views through leafless trees, but also laying in your sleeping bag for at least 12 hours each night. Between Saturday night and my extendo lunch break on Sunday, I finished a re-read of Remains of the Day.
Sunday I watched the sunrise through my hammock bugnet, reluctant to emerge from the warmth of the sack. Eventually I got up, ignored my numb toes, packed up to the sounds of dawn shots firing somewhere in the vicinity (the BMT runs through Blue Ridge Wildlife Management Area), and began retracing my steps from Saturday. I spent a long while in the valley of three forks when I got back to the waterfalls before doubling back to springer mountain. Located some dusky salamanders in a seep near one of the falls. The weather turned to overcast, and heavy gusts blew over the chattahoochee national forest. The world seemed close to rain. But nothing came of it, not even on my drive home.
Until next time, Springer Mtn.
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