|
from Away.com
Related Guides
|
ACTIVITIES
Walking the Appalachian Trail
Springer Mountain: Name Origin
by Larry Luxenberg
No one seems sure how Springer Mountain got its name. The most common story is that a family named Springer lived on the mountain in the nineteenth century. According to Whit Benson, former GATC president, local legend held that the mountaineer was not of outstanding repute. In fact, when the trail shifted from Mount Oglethorpe, GATC looked into this story and investigated earlier Cherokee names for the mountain. Nothing satisfactory came of this effort, however. Springer had been the name
on all twentieth century maps and the name by which local people knew the mountain Whatever the origins, Springer is quite a change from a prior name, Penitentiary Mountain.
A..T. founder Benton MacKaye's first map of the proposed trail route put the southern end on North Carolina's Mount Mitchell, at 6,684 feet the highest peak in the east. Other sites considered for the southern terminus were Lookout Mountain in Tennessee and Cohutta Mountain in Georgia. MacKaye showed a spur trail running the whole way to Stone Mountain near- .Atlanta.
Legend has it that a backpacker can equip himself with the gear he finds abandoned on the first few miles of the trail—but don't count on it. Sonie"Light Eagle" Shams, a 1988 thru-hiker who now is a ranger at Amicalola, says that on a single trip up to Springer she picked up an insulated down jacket, two wool sweaters, 150 feet of climbing rope, and a lot of fuel.
One day two girls left Amicalola for Springer Mountain, each carrying a gallon of Coleman fuel—maybe enough to get them to Maine. The staff tried to dissuade the girls. "But you can't tell a person you don't need it," Sonie said. "You can tell them there's going to be fuel at Neels Gap [forty miles away]. How much are you going to use here to there?"
Twenty-eight miles and maybe three days after starting the A.T., hikers reach Blood Mountain. They've survived the first big temptation to quit, the highway crossing at Woody Gap, where one can hitchhike into Suches, Georgia, and a bus home. The summit of Blood Mountain, 4,461 feet, the highest point on the A.T. in Georgia, offers views far into the distance.
The mountain takes its name from a battle between the Cherokee and Creek Indians. The Cherokee inhabited the northern half of Georgia into Virginia until most were forced to march west to Oklahoma in the deadly 1838 Trail of Tears. Of the sixteen thousand who began the winter march, four thousand died en route. The Cherokee left their mark along the way in names such as the Chattahoochee (stone and marked or flowered) and Nantahala (Land of the Noon-Day Sun) national forests, through which the A.T. runs in Georgia and North Carolina. Neels Gap was formerly WalasiYi (Place of the Frogs or Frogtown Gap) but was renamed after an engineer who put a highway through the gap in 1930. The Walasi-Yi Center, built as a lodge for Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers in 1933 and converted to an inn in 1937, has been serving hikers for decades.
Pressure to push the Cherokee out grew intense after the discovery of gold in streambeds near Dahlonega, Georgia, in 1828, resulting in what is billed as America's first gold rush, although North Carolina claims a slightly earlier one. Tourists can still pan for gold in the area. The gold was "so pretty; there was no other gold in the world like it," a local miner claimed. "It was so pure, as pure as 98.6 percent right out of the ground." Gold was so plentiful; here that in 1838, the same year as the Trail of Tears, a U.S. branch mint opened in Dahlonega. The name Dahlonega is said to be the Cherokee name for "precious yellow or gold." World War II marked the end of largescale mining in the Georgia mountains.
Once hikers make the steep descent from Blood Mountain into Neels Gap, good fortune awaits. Here Dorothy and Jeff Hansen have been operating Mountain Crossings at Walasi-Yi (Wall-la-see-e) Center for ten years. Hikers not as prepared as they thought, or unexpectedly weary, find a place to stay, good food, a warm atmosphere, expert advice, and a store well equipped with practical backpacking gear. They will pass through a breezeway, the only place on the A.T. where the trail goes under a roof.
Dorothy Hansen thru-hiked in 1979 end Jeff has been an outdoor educator most of his life. Their staff includes experienced hikers such as 1987 2,000-miler Wayne "Sky" King. Jeffis renowned on the A.T. for examining hikers' packs and helping them discard much of what they thought was already the barest of essentials. Each year, from the Hansen place alone, the eight hundred or so hikers who visit send home four thousand pounds of gear—10 percent of pack weight. Some shed as much as thirty pounds. Many continue to prune pounds as they go. As Pieter Van Why points out, "It's all too easy to end up with a seventy-two-pound pack full of lightweight backpacking gear." Among the ridiculous items discarded at Walasi-Yi have been scuba gear, hardbound books, big hatchets, and large iron pans. Either the heavy gear or the people carrying it are soon gone from the trail.
Jeff Hansen believes hikers have gotten better at picking gear each year, but mentally they are no better prepared than ever. Yet most experienced hikers say that attitude and determination are the keys to a successful thru-hike. Equipment problems, after all, can be overcome. Jeff says that too many people believe that "if I just get my equipment right, all that's left is the walking." They don't understand that what's inside their head is more important than what's on their back. "It's you walking the trail, not the gear," he adds.
The north Georgia mountains are so rugged that the elite Army Rangers have based their mountain training programs there since 1952. Hikers are well advised to camp at or near the first four shelters along the trail because Ranger training includes frequent night patrols, which can cross the A.T. The Rangers try to avoid hikers and in particular the shelter areas.
Hikers can take comfort knowing that if Ranger trainees stumble on civil ians, they receive a lower grade. Hikers can also be assured that what these Rangers go through in their seventeen-day stint in these mountains is infinitely more difficult than the thru-hikers' transit. Rangers arrive at Camp
Frank D Merrill (named after the commander of Merrill's Marauders during World War II) by parachute and, as Jumpstart found out, there's not much open country here. While at Camp Merrill the soldiers learn rappelling, patrolling, and other skills. They get little food or sleep. A typical Ranger loses as much as forty pounds during his sixty-eight-day training program, twice what an average A.T. hiker loses in five to six months on the trail.
Return to  Top
| Walking the
Appalachian Trail
is available from
the Adventurous Traveler Bookstore.
Click here to order!
 |
© Article copyright Stackpole Books.
RELATED GORP LINKS
 GORPtravel
GORPtravel-Hiking
GORP Hiking
|
|
Related Trekking Trips
Road Trip Guides
National Park Guides
Hiking Guides
Today's Gear Guy
Gear Guides
[from Outside magazine]
|
advertisement
Sign up for our Travel Deals Newsletter
|
