Like Mountain Squid, he said that we would have a difficult time finding someone to junk the car with, but Amicalola has an extended parking lot we could probably park our car in. He couldn’t believe we got our cobalt up that road. We explained our situation to Ron regarding our car and need for a shuttle. Mountain Squid waved us over and introduced us to Ron Brown. As we got to the bottom, we noticed Mountain Squid talking to a gray haired, heavily mustachioed man with a truck that had a big sticker on the windshield that said “Yellow Blazin'”. We hung around for a little while until the hikers started to disperse and headed back down to the parking lot. It was at that point, seeing the first white blaze and that view from Springer that it really hit me this is happening. We chatted with some of them and snapped some pics. There was a group of hikers already up there who made it there from the approach trail that day. We made it to the top of Springer relatively quickly. We thanked him for all of his help and headed up the 0.9 miles to Springer. He mentioned that Ron Brown had been up there a few times today and to look him up as he may be our best bet. He told us right now just about all of the drivers are pretty busy and we would want to call someone ASAP to ensure our ride. We didn’t but told him we would check the guide book and I had a list from a website saved on my phone. He also asked if we had anyone specific to shuttle us up. He wasn’t confident in our ability to find someone to sell the car off to, but he did say that Amicalola had a “rot lot” where we may be able to park our car for the length of our hike for a cost. We discussed our plan to junk the car and shuttle to Springer because we didn’t want to do the approach trail. He’s a local AT Volunteer and Ridge Runner who keeps count of North Bounders. Carolina was a nervous wreck the entire 6.5 miles up but we made it up with car, and bodies, intact.Īs soon as we pulled into the parking lot, we were approached by a tall guy in glasses and a boonie hat who goes by the name Mountain Squid. It’s bumpy, rocky, rutted, muddy and rides a ridge most of the way up. Now, let me just say FSR 42 is NOT a road you want to drive up in a Chevy Cobalt. After everything was squared away, we checked out the falls, went and got some lunch and then took a drive up to Springer to scout it out. We purchased our AT Passports and got them stamped, as well. We slept in a bit and went down to the visitors center to sign in for our AT thru-hike. We arrived at the lodge at a quarter to 9, checked in, quickly and grabbed some food and a bottle of wine from the lodge restaurant before it closed, and retreated to our room (which had an amazing view) to watch The Walking Dead. Thankfully, I booked the lodge at the falls and had to re route there. I double checked my reservation to make sure it was the Falls Lodge I booked, because that place looked REALLY rough. Speaking of navigation, I put Amicalola Lodge into Waze and apparently, there is an Amicalola Lodge that is NOT the Amicalola Falls Lodge. We hit traffic on I-75 north of Macon and I think Waze routed us around the entire northern part of the damn state to get around it. We drove 6 hours up to Jacksonville Beach to hang with some of my old friends on Friday and Saturday and left for Amicalola on Sunday around noon. ![]() I considered that a nice little parting gift from the city. We left on Friday, March 24th, and it took us 2 freaking hours to get out of Miami because of the traffic. We also decided we were going to just drive our car up to Amicalola and try to junk it for cash, rather than spend the money to rent a car. We booked a room at Amicalola Falls Lodge. I hung out with my kids the entire week, getting as much time in as I could with them. We had to get all of our stuff packed up and put into a storage unit. The week leading up to the hike was pretty crazy. This is also my first time blogging from my phone so here it goes. Hey there, folks! Here’s a run-down of the days leading up to our hike.
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