HIKING THE GEORGIA AT LOOP TRAIL

Six days of heaven...and hell!

In preparation for a '98 thruhike of the trail, I selected the Georgia A.T. Loop Trail as the perfect week long, strenuous, practice hike. The loop trail consists of four trails: The A.T., The Benton MacKaye Trail, The Duncan Ridge National Recreation Trail, and The Coosa Bald Trail. The blue blazed Duncan Ridge Trail loops from the A.T. at Three Forks, four miles northeast of Springer Mountain, back to the A.T. at Slaughter Gap, one mile below Blood Mountain. The total hiking distance, including the A.T. portion, is 54.9 miles.

To the south The Duncan Ridge shares the pathway with the Benton MacKaye section one and section two trail to the top of Rhodes Mountain; to the north it partners with the yellow blazed Coosa Bald Trail. And in between, per all the hiking books, the Duncan Ridge Trail leads the hiker up and down some of the most rugged, steep, and challenging trail in the southeast. "Just the ticket!" I thought for a potential thru-hiker to test his gear, his knees, his stamina, and most of all his "will-to-hike."

There's only one problem: Between Rhodes Mountain and Coosa Bald, The Duncan Ridge National Scenic Trail doesn't exist!

Day 1 : Woody Gap to Justus Creek campsite - 6.4 miles

I hoist my pack and hike south on the A.T. Every twenty minutes or so I encounter day hikers and backpackers, all nice people, most of whom are hiking out to Woody gap and the jammed parking lot.

The trail is wide, worn, but well maintained. After my experiences working with PATH, I notice all the work the G.A.T.C. (Georgia Appalachian Trail Club) has put into the trail. I camp at Justus Creek. By six o'clock the last hiker waves as he walks through, and I'm alone. On my evening walk I flush a family of Carolina Wrens. The fledglings are whirring puffs of feathers who flit from bush to bush. The first day is easy.

Day 2 : Justus Creek to Benton MacKaye Trail - 10.5 miles

Not so easy. I sweat, labor, my way up one mountain and then steeply down the other side to a gap, where the whole process is repeated on my tortuous trek to Hawk Mountain Shelter. At Horse Shoe Gap an older lady sits in a tent unable to hike farther. Some hikers from Mississippi and I offer our help, and we learn her daughter has gone to Hawk Mountain shelter to seek assistance from a ridge-runner. Fortunately F.S. road 42 swings through the gap. The daughter is arranging for a pickup. We hike on.

At the shelter I purify my water from the stream and fill my water bottles, one cup into the bottle, one cup into me! I'm not drinking enough water. I'm dehydrated, and I vow to drink more. I speak with Leslie, the ridge-runner, about the loop trail: Yes, it doesn't get much maintenance; and yes, it may have storm damage.

By four o'clock I reach the Benton MacKaye trail junction at Three Forks. I leave my pack and hike a tenth of a mile down to Long Creek Falls. I stand in front of the cascading water, shirtless, eyes closed, arms held high and wide as the mist and the constant rush of cold air from the falls washes over my body--nature's air conditioning!

Day 3 : Three Forks to GA Rt. 60 - 9.5 miles

The Benton MacKaye Trail: The way hiking should be! Well maintained, well marked, but little traveled. I meet no hikers on the trail, only two boys horsing around on the first week of summer school break, and one fisherman at the Toccoa River suspension bridge. The bridge, 265 feet long and built by the Forest Service with the assistance of the GATC in 1977, gives and springs back with every step I take eighty feet above the shoaling, blue-green water! I rig my tarp as an awning and take a long lunch break next to the river before the steep climb up Toonowee Mountain to GA Rt. 60.

Day 4 : GA Rt. 60 to Akin Gap - 9.5 miles

By 9:30 AM I face the trail junction at Rhodes Mountain. The Benton MacKaye trail turns left, the blue blazed Duncan Ridge Trail goes right. I see fresh blue blazes, recently sawed, downed, trees; there is cause for hope. When I hike over the next crest, however, I learn the hard, hard truth. The trail work at the junction was done by a MacKaye crew. The Duncan Ridge Trail has received zero upkeep! It's overgrown. But the path is imprinted on the ridge, and the blazes, while faint, lead east. I don my gaiters to protect my bare legs before hiking to Rhodes Mountain Gap.

Hiking steeply down through thick overgrowth, "worst gets worst-er." The trees on the hillside are down! The first of the storm damage. Decision time: Do I abort the hike? Retreat to the MacKaye Trail and Rt. 60, hitchhike back to Woody Gap? Or do I continue on? I make the wrong decision. I hike on.

By 6:30 PM when I make camp in the center of the trail, in overgrowth I stamped down with my boots, I've walked for 11 hours and covered 9.5 miles, nearly 3 miles on good MacKaye Trail, and 6.5 miles in 9 hours through, over, around thick overgrowth and blowdown after blowdown. I eat dinner and collapse into my tent. I'm past the no return point.

Day 5 : Akin Gap to Slaughter Gap - 11 miles

The next morning, over my cup of coffee, I devise a plan. I will hike, rather fight, my way 3.5 miles to Bryant Gap where the Duncan Ridge Trail touches F.S. road 39. F.S. 39, aptly named The Duncan Ridge Road, was my original escape route in case I found the going too tough on the Duncan Ridge Trail. Well, I damn well find the going too tough! !

It takes five hours to reach Bryant Gap! At one point I set my pack down in the epicenter of a three acre blowdown. It takes me, compass in hand, forty minutes to relocate the trail, then FIVE minutes to hike to Bryant Gap.

Once on the road I'm back to hiking, back to "putting them down, and picking 'em up," back to fast city! I hike so far, so fast, that I wipe myself out, like a motor running out of control. I take a rest stop, then another rest stop, then I follow faint blue blazes a half mile down the mountain to a spring, where I drop into a bed of green ferns and drink cupful after cupful of water from the gurgling mouth of the spring. By 4 PM I've trudged to Wolf Pen Gap and GA. Rt. 180, where the #$%(~&*!! Duncan Ridge Trail, Coosa Bald Trail, and Duncan Ridge Road converge. I'm only two miles, on good Coosa Bald Trail, from camp at Slaughter Gap and my beloved A.T.

Day 6 : Slaughter Gap to Woody Gap - 8 miles

Home: a flat place for my tent, tent pegs that sink into the ground on the first try, a spring of cold water close by, a sponge shower, a fresh T-shirt, a hot meal, and two cups of after dinner coffee, followed by a guest at dusk, a doe caught "big-eyed" in the beam of my flashlight, then released to browse undisturbed.

The eight miles to Woody Gap, steep at times, is a romp. I marvel at the storm damage on the trail totally cleared by the GATC. I meet Bill from old Mass., who is section hiking, and George from Columbia, who is the retired Chief Financial Officer of Southern National Bank, but on the trail we are just hikers, and we chat at length.

At the last overlook prior to Woody Gap I peer across the mountain ranges and ponder: I made the wrong decision....but I got away with it. When you hike alone you must allow an extra margin of safety, and I violated that safety margin. I won't make that mistake again. That said, the gear did what gear is suppose to do, my knees held up, my stamina, while tested, passed the test, but more important, I look forward to my next hike, and Katahdin in '98!

After my experiences on, or rather in, The Duncan Ridge National Recreational Trail, I'm writing a letter to the district ranger in The Chattahoochee National Forest to express my concern. Prior to my hike I attempted to call the Forest Service several times, but got no answer. There were no posted warning signs about the trail, and the ridge-runner, jointly sponsored by the ATC and the GATC, did not know the status of the trail. The trail from the MacKaye Trail to the Coosa Bald trail should be closed until it can be cleared.

• In addition to being an active PATH member and trail maintainer, Dwayne Johnson is an ATC life member and a long-time backpacker who hopes to thruhike in '98.