Katie's News: Hiking In to the Hike Inn

I seemed to have stuffed a few too many adventures into April. Last year Paula got this great idea of staying in the Hike Inn, which is located in the middle of the woods (as in no roads) very close to the beginning of the AT. (AT is what the 'with it' people call the Appalachian Trail). The AT starts at Springer Mountain GA and ends in Maine. Generally people start in the south and head north. They estimate that 50% of the people don't make it out of Georgia. I can see why... We saw both examples at the Inn -- a lady that we found sleeping in the lobby definitely won't make it and a young couple that definitely will ! The couple that will make it are doing it for a cause- https://adventuresoncanvas.com/events/ - If you are interested you can follow her blog as they progress. "Follow My Journey" link on the bottom of the page.

The Hike Inn is so popular that Paula had to make the reservation a year in advance. Even though it is only a 5 mile hike in to the Hike Inn, the majority of us had been worried that we were not in good enough shape. Remember most of us live at sea level and except for a couple of high bridges we lack any hills.

Mimi won the "always be prepared" award. She and her husband, Tom, practiced mulitple times on the Jekyll Island bridge. Mimi was so strong on the hike - she was able to be our "Sherpa Momma" in that she carried SOMEONE's pack for a large part of the hike up. (No - Not mine)

As part of the hiking group, we all had out specific jobs -
Paula could find a song to sing about ANY subject, Judy told many of her hilarious "Judy stories", Gale motivated and encouraged, Margie secretly pushed us up the tough hills. Kate read the information and/or made up legends about landmarks along the way and I found logs for us to sit on...... It takes a team.

Kate told an Indian "Legend" here (definitely fake news)

We left St Simons on Thursday and stayed in Amicalola Falls Lodge that night. The lodge is located at the top of the falls. It was a beautiful but chilly and very windy day.

We left the Lodge Friday morning with the addition of Gale and Kate. It was another cold and windy day but on a warming trend.

Most of us had packs 15 lbs or less (except for Kate -22 lbs) and we wore lots of layers. One of the signs said that the 5 miles would take us about 3 hours ..... It took us 6.

Lots of steep hills, roots, and rocks to navigate around and over.

We arrived at the Hike in around 3 pm. Unloaded the packs and explored the area.

One of the Inn's volunteers gave us a tour of the establishment. Very environmentally friendly. Lots of worms, solar panels, and gardens.

Toilets were very interesting - not flushable - but very breezy.

We spent the next couple of nights just enjoying the area and taking small hikes.

Gale and Mimi actually made the 9 mile round trip to the real beginning of the AT. WOW ! Kate and I took much less impressive 2 mile hike to see if we could find some birds. Since the Hike Inn was a device free area, they had a fully stocked game room filled with puzzles and board games. Shhhh - our cell phones still worked - we just looked at them very sparingly and privately. It was also an alcohol free area - BUT AGAIN sparingly and privately.

A drum woke us up so we could watch the beautiful sunrises

The food was family style. When they rang the bell, the food was on the table and you better get there quick. Price included breakfast at 8am and dinner at 6pm. You could buy a bagged lunch for 8 dollars extra (it was worth it - we actually bought extras to take back to the Lodge Sunday night to substitute for the lodge's way overpriced school cafeteria food that we had on Thursday night.)

After dinners they had a speaker -- we sat thru the 1st night's speaker -- but we cut class for the 2nd night. (He broke all the PowerPoint Presentation rules)

After a wonderful Sunday morning breakfast - we left to hike back out. Easier and a little faster and much warmer.