Page 12 - Discover Georgia Outdoors 2019

we were safe for the night. We had a each other and laughed. The shelter
picnic as we sat on our fluffy sleeping was around a tree and slight bend
bags on the waterproof air mattresses. in the trail, less than 100 yards from
Yes, it was worth the extra weight! My where we had camped.
bear canister-armed younger sister You will have to go to Discover
ran through the rain to add our supper GeorgiaOutdoors.com to read our
The next morning, we woke up complete adventures, including an
remnants to the bear bag strung high
APPALACHIAN TRAIL could certainly see the six-inch-tall We stopped to picnic and admire early, packed our tent, ready to start locations of the 12 shelters along the
A.T. map, major trailheads with access
across a tree branch.
to towns, water sources, and the
Georgia section. Happy hiking!
our day. Within 25 steps we looked at
bright red, orange and yellow fungi.
white blazes on the tree marking
But dark clouds were gathering. No
the Appalachian Trail. I have “direxia”
problem, our younger sister/astute
(dyslexia for directions), so that left
navigator announced, we were almost
our younger sister to read the map. A
sun-filled, blue sky day ushered us off
to Hawk Mountain Shelter, 8.1 miles
on our easy level, downhill trail. We
had a blast catching up on life, solving
purpose we walked rapidly toward the
the world’s problems and singing silly
shelter. Twenty long, thunder-filled
minutes later, we thought we must
camp songs. We took off our boots from the start of the trail. With firm
and wiggled our toes in the gurgling have missed the shelter and decided
streams as we filtered our water for to set up camp before the rain hit.
the next leg. (It never hit me until Within five minutes the tent was up
now that we were wiggling our toes in and we dove in just as it deluged.
the same water we were drinking, but My siblings were happy, convinced
that is life on the trail.) no bear would come out in the rain, so
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