Loving NE Georgia: A Backpacker’s Tale (Part 2)

Into the Frying Pan

 

Jacksonville Greyhound Bus Station at Night.
(Courtesy of The Times Union)

Without fanfare, I was dropped at a friend’s business only three miles from the Greyhound Bus Station on June 2nd, where I spent the night sleeping on the floor. Early in the morning I hiked from there to the bus station, where I accumulated my first layer of sweat, despite the relative low temperature of 70 ° F. I nervously waited outside the door watching the night people and the homeless chatter back and forth, handing out more than a few cigarettes in the process, and thankfully, not getting mugged.

The bus was filled with bored, sleepy people, as it wound its way up the Interstate and then through scenic coastal South Carolina. I felt numb, but when I dozed my dreams were filled with beautiful mountain forests, dancing streams, sparkling campfires, and lunker trout.

I got off the bus in Clemson, SC early that evening and had until morning to find the Amtrak station.  It was to be more challenging than I expected. I asked at the Greyhound how to get there (my cell phone was unable to get on the web), and a harried employee casually pointed me in the direction. With great difficulty I donned my pack and headed off in the pointed direction, immediately beginning to sweat in the 75 degree temperature. The street I understood to follow ended abruptly.

I thought Clemson was a beautiful city, but I couldn’t find anyone who actually lived there to clarify the directions, although I asked literally dozens of people. The station was only a mile distant, but I must have walked five times that. I kept walking, looking, while the straps of the pack – which I hadn’t figured out how to adjust correctly – began to cut painfully into my shoulders. After an hour, my legs trembled with each step, and I was bathed in perspiration. All this, and I hadn’t even got near a hiking trail yet! A local cop shadowed my travel, cruising by at a slow speed every few minutes. I began to worry, a little, about making this trip. 

Finally, after a couple of hours, I found the Amtrak station and shivered through the night with my only clothing choice being shorts and a tank top (I had left everything else behind for lack of space). Someone said it was almost 50°F by morning. I did meet some nice folks though, and we talked with one couple while watching some birds trying to teach their young to fly. The train arrived on schedule, and I was on my way.

Amtrak Station - Toccoa, GA

I watched through the windows during the short trip, growing more and more excited as each mountain side and patch of forest we traveled by revealed itself under an occasional street lamp as I strained to make out details in the predawn greyness and morning fog. 

My earlier trepidation vanished. 

Dawn broke as I arrived at the Amtrak station.

This Mom Caught Showing Her Ass

A picture is still worth a thousand words!

an Alicia original

Loving NE Georgia: A Backpacker’s Tale (Part 1)

Dedicated to the Awesome People of Rabun County in Northeast Georgia

Out of the Ashes, a New Beginning....

Pacific Crest Trail
(Photo by US. Forest Service)

As a child, growing up in Seaside, Oregon, I spent as much time as possible wandering the rain forest, exploring the Necanicum River, and experiencing the Clatsop and Tillamook State Forests. I loved my time in the forest, oblivious of the possibility that a black bear might paw  up my tent or a  rattlesnake might sink it’s fangs into my unprotected flesh. So it makes sense, I suppose, that when I most recently “ran away from home,” I should find myself returning to the forest.

Fire is an essential part of forest's ecosystem; a good lightening blaze every so many years makes it stronger. I've been thinking lately that maybe that works for people too!

Truth is, I was burned out, fed up, frustrated, and almost broke. My income had been seriously downsized in the recession, and though I tried a couple of other things that didn’t work out, I ended up losing my home, my stuff, and in some ways, my self-respect and sanity. My Mom died that fall, as did Baby (the best dog I’ve ever known and my long-time companion). My beloved granddaughter, Mandi, turned 18 and went off to further her education. I felt the need to "begin again" and there was no one left who actually depended on me, so when I had heard a woman talking about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail on NPR, I immediately decided I was going to do that....

Problem was, I’ve been mostly sitting behind a computer screen for the past thirty years and have foolishly smoked even longer. My body is adjusted to the long, sweltering summers of Jacksonville, Florida. This was in early May of 2012, and no matter how I looked at it, I was already too late to start in the desert, and too early to start elsewhere – unless I was up to being almost immediately at a high elevation with severely colder temperatures and likely snow-covered terrain. I thought I had a plan until I realized that even had I been able to manage with the extreme cold (from a Floridian’s perspective), at the base of Mt. Whitney I probably wouldn’t be able to breathe. (Mt. Whitney, at an elevation of 14,494 feet above sea level, is the highest peak in the lower 48 states). Waiting until next year didn’t feel like an option, and by now, having day dreamed for weeks about the beauty, silence and solitude of the Cascade Mountains, I was more than a little desperate to go!

Appalachian Trail Near Bigelow Preserve in Maine
(Photo by US Forest Service)

My attention grew to the Appalachian Trail, which begins in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and runs 2,184 miles north to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. I didn’t like the idea of hiking through the highly populated eastern states and dealing with high crime, high temperatures, and Lyme Disease-ridden ticks, but it seemed like a start. Good training, I thought, for the Pacific Crest. And it was close – $120.00 for a bus and train ticket got me there (mostly). I bought a pack, tent, sleeping bag, and as much of necessary-seeming equipment as I could afford (which wasn’t much).

I got my first physical in over ten years and was granted an overall clean bill of health, in spite of two major back injuries and a new diagnosis of C.O.P.D. The beginning of June came and I left, leaving behind my computer, perfumes and body lotions (and anything else that might attract a bear), almost all of my clothes, toilets, running water, and my family. 

I could barely lift my sixty pound pack.

Alicia Goes Wild

Dedicated to the Awesome People of Rabun County in Northeast Georgia

Alicia Goes Wild....

Sweeping changes reverberated through my life during the past year, and a lot of what I leaned on fell apart. While many doors closed, many more opened, and without much thought given to the reasons why, I jumped through one.

Oconee-Chattahoochee National Forest From Bartram Trail
(Courtesy US Forest Service)

 

 

 

It landed me here in Clayton, Georgia, smack dab in the middle of the Oconee-Chattahoochee National Forest. The path to this space has been filled with unexpected difficulty and unexpected miracles (it’s mostly the human angels I remember most). Meanwhile, as I’ve let expire or deleted just about everything else that I had been working on, I decided that perhaps I might start a new blog and share some of the sights along my trail.  

This is awesome country here. One of my maps describes the Warwoman Wildlife Management Area (which starts right across the road from me) as “located on 15,800 acres of Chattahoochee National Forest timberland in extremely rugged and isolated mountain terrain…. 4 wheel drive vehicles are recommended.”  

Created by a collision between the North America and Europe continents four million years ago, the mountains here consist of brutally broken slabs of native earth thrust upwards one upon another; the violence of that collision is still plain to see in the landscape. They offer many gateways to stunning vistas and raw wilderness.

(There were twelve recorded snakebites in this county last summer; several were fatal).

Cherokee Mother and Child

The Cherokee people once called this home. I live on Warwoman Road which follows a large portion of Warwoman creek, and not far from here is a place called Warwoman Dell. There, the Warwoman, a respected Cherokee dignitary, was said to have voiced her opinions at tribal councils, especially in those matters relating to war and peace. Later, the Georgian Gold Rush led to the displacement of the Cherokee Nation and ultimately the Trail of Tears. 

(Most nights I can hear the coyotes howling outside).

Georgia has an active stocking program, and between that and the crystal clear waters of the many creeks and streams that cascade down the mountains, the waters offer prime fishing for trout. One of the reasons I came this way was to fish for trout, and often it is the promise of that seldom fished, awesome fishing hole that keeps me hiking up and down these trails. I have caught so many trout it almost seems mundane now.

(At least two people drowned in the rough waters of the Chattooga River, near here, last summer).

I continue to hike these mountains, loving the solitude of the trail and the abundant wildlife, wondering just what new experience waits just around the corner, what flower blooms, what critter lurks there.

 

Black Bear, Georgia

 

(A black bear ruined the garden behind my house last summer). 

                This coming season I intend to spend time fishing, camping, hunting ginseng and yellow root, prospecting for gold, selling bait, and acting as a guide on overnight hiking trips. 

My next post is created and will publish on February 14^th, 2013, detailing how I ran away from home and ended up getting off a train in Toccoa, Georgia with nothing more than a backpack full of stuff. I’m hoping to get ahead of publishing five blogs a week; I hope you find some portion of it interesting….