Gem and Em do Springer...a TR

“So my weekend got off to a great start. Instead of going to bed at a decent hour, I decide to attend a margarita party at a local mexican establishment. After feeling just right, I figured I should catch some sleep before my hike up to Springer Mountain, GA.

4:00 AM Saturday, I pack up and leave. Surprisingly, I am not at all that tired, probably due to Layla (my dog) pacing in the back seat of the car. For the next 4 hours, I drove through hard rain, hoping that it would stop before the hike. Just when I would start to tire out, a honk from a passing trucker would startle me to a new state of awareness. About 30 minutes from my destination, Layla decides that she wants to get sick in the car. So.....I get to smell the lovely scents of doggie poo the rest of the way.

10:00 AM. I meet Gemini at the Visitor's Center and we head out on the trail. The first mile was pretty rough, but we were hoping to see the waterfall that everyone raves about. All we see is the TOP of the falls. Boring. Continuing on the trail, Gemini starts to blister due to her new boots. Poor thing - we had only gone a mile or two:(

It drizzles pretty steadily the whole morning, but the fog added a mysterious affect to the atmosphere. Pretty cool. After what seemed like forever, we reach the summit only to be dissapointed that we cannot see any views due to the fog. We take pictures of ourselves and the AT sign. Camping at the summit was a group of young men um boys with their shirts off. At first I thought they may be in thier early 20s, but alas, I think they were still teenie boppers. Gem and I signed the trail register...you'll have to wait for her pictures to know what it said. Yeah, we're silly gals.

As soon as we start scoping the area for a place to set up our tents, thunder starts to roar and the heavy rain begins. We run to the nearby shelter to take cover and run into a fellow hiker with a dog. He immediately informs me that his dog is NOT friendly and to keep mine away. Oh, that was an interesting 45 minutes waiting out the rain. My dog and his.

After the rain stops, we set up our tents and cook dinner. Gemini tries to start a fire, unsucessfully, cause all the freakin wood was drenched. After dinner, we pined for the alcohol that was left behind and swore to never, ever forget that important necessity again. Due to lack of drunkeness, we fall asleep at twilight.

7:30 AM. We slowly wake and pack up. By this time, Gemini's blisters are killing her and I have issues with chaffing:) Good times. It was a pretty uneventful hike back. We were both pretty quiet, I guess just enduring the pain we were in. We meet some nice and not so nice hikers along the way. I don't remember anyone's name. We ran into the little dog that hated Layla so much again, but that was about the only excitement for 8 miles.

Once we got to the trailhead, Gem and I went drove up to view the falls we had missed the previous day. Very pretty, but I wished we had hiked to them. We then went to the park lodge and treated ourselves to the Sunday Brunch Buffet. Yum Yum. We ate, and ate, and ate. After filling ourselves to the maximum, we went our separate ways. Good drive home, no doggie poo this time:)

Thanks for the trip, Gemini. It was fun to hike with ya!”

“I can't believe yall forgot the booze! man, yall need a checklist or somethin.!”

“wowser.. so you guys went up the approach trail.. slept.. and then back down the approach trail??..

You guys are gluttons for punishment..

:)”

“I know Roam. Its one thing if ONE of us forgets it, but both???

TD - we had no clue what the trail was like. We just wanted to know what all the hoopla was about Springer. Next time, we're gonna do something with VIEWS! and, maybe not so hard:)”

“heard tell of a loop off the summit back to the visitor center, sumtin like the Bartram trail or something like that - need to get some maps of that area.”

“Sorry to hear you're still having problems with blisters, Gemini.

Layla! I like your dog's name!

You hit the Southern AT terminus and we hit the Northern AT terminus, kewl!!!”

“I never cared for Jerry Springer but it sounds like you guys enjoyed him. LOL!”

“Roam, we didnt have any maps except the one that the state park gave us. All that covered was the trails inside the park. There was a hike-in trail that was a 10 mile loop. I dont think it went to the summit, though. Would have been nice to do a loop.”

“ya.. I would have done the (len foote) lodge on the way back down.. stepped in for some nice hot chocolate.. or a coke.”

“doggie poo/upchuck is the beeeeeeessssssssst smell in all of creation!

glad you guys got out!!”

“you guys.. wow.. if you just woulda asked.. I would have lent you my maps of the place.”

“do they make carsick doggie pooo flavored jelli beans?”

“I am uploading the pictures in a little while. I had fun, and the weather wasn't too bad.

my feet are killing me today. I won't be able to wear real shoes for a while. I guess slippers it will be from now on until this crap is healed.

I can't believe we really forgot the alcohol, but yes, we sure did.

I started to write a trip report, but prolly will never finish it, at least not in the near future. Embear pretty much said it all anyway. :)

I'll post the pics.
em... I still didnt figure out what fell into the waterfall. Hope it wasn't anything important.”

“I normally hate hiking without a map, but all the sold was an AT set, with book and all. Too expensive.

Didn't feel like hanging around any longer to look at the guide books either. I think we both just wanted to get started.

I found another trail that sounded interesting, the coosa trail?? Found it on the trail page on this site. Lots of views...sounds like it would be funner! :)”

“The Springer approach trail ain't nothing but 8.8miles of HADES.. 1500' climbs.. over and over..

It's a rite of passage, that's all.”

“Seriously Gem.. I would have gladly mailed you my maps and guidebooks.. I really hate that you guys didn't have more information.”

“You got that right, TD! I thought it would be all uphill to the summit, so the hike back would be all down. Wow, was I wrong! It was neverending. You think you're getting higher and higher, but just doing the same thing over and over again.

ENS - I don't think they do. :)”

“Hey Gem - you don't have to post any pictures of me. Really. I hate pictures of me :)”

“Glad you guys are scoutin' out the area for when I can make it up that way! Thanks! Sounds like it was fun anyway (dog poo being the exception).”

“great trip report..least the guy was honest..instead of my dog's nice...*chomp*

Go buy the new jelly Belly jelly beans...the harry potter type...i tricked my brother into eating the vomit flavored one...he almost killed me...the grass one taste..like grass...weird”

“Hey, Gem...please post the pictures of embear. While embear may hate them, we love them. ;-)”

“that reminds me of that one Pink Panther movie (strikes again). "Does your dog bite?" "No" RRRRAAAA OOOO "I thought you said that your dog does not bite" "That is not my dog"”

“I thought it was a trip report about going to the Jerry Springer show. (Which by the way gets weirder and weirder. Now the bouncers pretend to be gagging all the time. Weird!)”

“the pictures are uploaded, but it takes webshots forever lately to show them.”

“http://community.webshots.com/album/178766880XUhlac/0

there really wasn't much to see, alas, not a lot of pictures.”

“Oh, this was a hiking trip? From the sounds of the title, I thought...well, you know... ;)

Anywhoo, sounds like y'all had a great time. I'll check out the pics in a bit...”

“Sorry to hear the trip didn't go as smooth as it could have. I've done the Approach Trail and thought it was a blast. I'd love to do it again.

Lookin foward to seeing the pictures!
Embear, you are too cute! Why don't you like having your picture taken?”

“Gem, the pics look like a Polar Bear in a white out or somethin.. Maybe webshots isn't working..”

“The pics were great! Cute doggie!”

“it really wasn't that bad. Yeah, my thought were on my blisters, prolly more then on the trail. "ouch" "ouch" "OOOUUUUCHHH", was on my mind a lot. LOL

All together it was fun, wished for more views, but hey...now I can mark it off my list. Always wanted to hike this trail.

we made the best out of it while singing the Macarena (sp??). Even got 2 hikers to sing it too... still heard them in the background after we continued hiking.

our dumb poem will prolly make history in the springer register:



http://community.webshots.com/album/178766880XUhlac
It's somewhere on there, but webshots is going nuts again.
I went something like this:

Storms a brewn’
Hikers are chewn’
Lets keep on movin’
‘cause the guys next door are schmoozn’

It would've been even dumber if we would have thought of the final and perfect ending:
"your own damn fault, now you're loosin"

but oh well, we didn't thnk about it until it was too late.”

“Gem, which shoes were you wearing? I think I found my answer, I didn't have blisters but the top of my left foot was sore. I tried and like so far Nike Air Wallowa II. mid height and sort of like trail runners with more butt!”

“lol, hilarious registry entry.

nice promo for Matt too.

Embear, you are the trail cutie, ya know. don't be shy about your pics.”

“Page 1 of 0.

might be part of the problem”

“I wore my brand new asolos. must say though that I was stupid enough to wear them for the first time on this hike. Meaning I did NOT break them in at all.

I had faith in my asolos as my very first hiking boots were asolos too and had never ever given me a blister. Stupid mistake!!!

it's just so hard to walk around in hiking boots here in SC if the temps are over 90... :( my own damn fault.

After my blisters are gone I'll take them on a day hike, and see how they'll do.

I should pack a pair of sandals just in case...”

“SS, the pictures are uploaded and I was able to view them a little while ago. Like I said, webshots is a pain in the ass!!!”

“Gem's pics are in another dimmension. Whoa”

“ENS, no #&%!$ing kidding!!
Webshots really starting to piss me off. You should think afer over a year they should've taken care of their damn problems!!”

“webshots worked fine for me gem, and uh, everyone else.

lol”

“new asolos are apparently made on a different last. i can't fit a pair of the new ones, but the old ones were perfect.”

“Pictures working now.
Nice, thanks for shareing.”

“Now where are the bikini pics?”

“Great trip report... but I can't see the pics, webshots no work :(”

“Great TR, nice pics.... what's up with all that unneeded clothing! :(>”

“1.) sorry to hear about the dog#&%!$ smell... PU!

2.) sorry to hear about the rain and fog. bummer.

3.) sorry to hear about your blisters, gem. i'm sure i'll be cursing my new unbroken in boots this weekend as well.

4.) sorry to hear about the chaffing.

5.) and i'm damn sorry to hear that you forgot the alcohol!

but.. at least you had fun! and the pictures aren't too bad either.”

“awesome pics Gem.”

“in the pic of the registry and what you wrote, it's looks like you misspelled "thebackPacker.com" and then had to go back and correct it. lol”

“ENS, I did misspell it. LOL. Not sure what I wrote,I think it was thebackbacker.com or somethign like that. LOL

we both came up with the dumb poem, embear wrote it down. I added the "thebackpacker.com"”

“Good TR. Way to be postive, girls!

Gem, I hope your boots work out for you. Those are the very ones that I gave up on after 100+ miles and about 6 trips. My feet just got chewed up each and every time no matter what I did.”

“ruby, hmm...I may just return them right away. I really don't want to hike 16 miles with raw blisters ever again. LOL

Yeah, maybe a dayhike or two around the block huh?? Not sure what to do yet. I really don't want to keep bugging REI.”

“gem, now u know how i felt at the PB trip! awful, wasn't it???

what boots did u get?”