Week 1, Part 1
In which it all finally starts!
Welcome back to Stairsteps, a semi-regular series about my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2026! This newsletter tries to highlight some of the challenges and joys of discovering thru-hiking, as told by one passenger of the Leg Pain Express. If you have questions for me, please comment or reach out - I’ll gladly respond when I can (i.e when I have cell service).
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Hey, Yall!
Good god, this is a bit overdue. Whoops!The first weeks of this trek have straight up felt like several months with how much has been going on. Who knew the reward for doing so much leg work [preparatory] would be doing so much leg work [literal]?
But hey, I am indeed still kicking! Even through the grueling hikes, rising hunger, and ripening stink, things have been going decently!
Oh, and owing to Substack’s email length limit running up against all the things I have to share (god, the pictures I want to post…), this first week is going to be a two-fer. Expect another post soon!
What Have I Been Up To?
Hiking, and a lot of it. At the end of my first week on the trail, I was nearly 70 miles in and drafting this post in Hiawassee, GA, on my first “zero day” of no hiking.1 Don’t let that fool you into thinking I was taking it easy, though; I’d already hiked around two dozen mountains in those miles.
Since giving a long list of “I hiked Springer, I hiked Horse Gap, I hiked Tray Mountain, etc etc” seems a bit dull, I’m going to try to keep these updates a bit more generic. When a stretch of trail particularly earns my distaste (or really wows me), I’ll give a name. For now, I want to keep things a bit more north of a “listicle” and instead talk more qualitatively about my weeks. With that said:
The First Day
The day I set out, my parents saw me off at Amicalola Falls State Park in Georgia. After a quick breakfast, a Leave No Trace/bear safety video from the ATC, and some photos and hugs goodbye, I headed eagerly through the arched trailhead for the Springer Approach Trail, right behind the visitor center.2 Quickly, I arrived at Amicalola Falls itself, a towering and gorgeous 729-foot cascade. I was awed - it’s the biggest waterfall I’ve seen in person, and one hell of a first landmark on the trail. Talk about starry-eyed; I was stoked to start just looking up at its rushing waters!
…and then I had a moment of mild horror as I noticed my first major [pre-]Appalachian Trail obstacle in all its cruel, immediate irony.
Stairs. Of course. The very first ascent of this whole thing was a grueling, literal stair climb with my 35ish-pound pack up hundreds of steps. Absolutely evil and sinister. This blog’s name suddenly felt far more grimly prophetic than intended. But hey, I had been wishing for this show to get on the road, as it were, so I began climbing while coming to grips with the ‘monkey’s paw’ of it all.
Day one easily put the then-hardest day hike I’d ever done3 to shame. The approach trail - which isn’t even an official part of the AT! - is almost 9 miles long, with 3146’ total of ascent and 1181’ of descent. Though I (somehow/barely) managed to knock out the in one day, it was an all-day hike that saw me hobbling into camp in the evening, absolutely exhausted and a bit more sober-minded about what I was getting into. I spent something like 9 leg-battering hours of my day to get up Springer Mountain and my reward? Mile 0.2 of the official AT, achieved!
Granted, “just” mile 0.2 ended with a beautiful sunset vista, my first official trail log signature, and what (thanks to hunger) must have been the finest instant mash ever made by man. I was so grateful to be atop Springer Mountain after months of planning and a hard day of dragging myself across the brutal backwoods of north Georgia.
And then, right as I was feeling accomplished, the night fell. In another bit of irony, this was a revisit of my last night of camping from something like 20 years ago; a mountain wind whipped up, and it was a bone-chilling 35 degrees by the morning (wind still included). I didn’t sleep at all. What a welcome!
The Hiking
So what’s a typical day of hiking on the AT like? In a word: brutal.
I have heard this is partly just due to how the terrain of the Georgia section - very hilly from the start with few ridges connecting mountains. It’s up and down and repeat, all day.
MacKaye and Avery did not intend this,4 but it does feel a bit to me like the early AT is meant to weed out unprepared thru-hikers. The hills were lung-burning climbs for me, and they would have been murder if I hadn’t trained on the stairmaster.
The approach trail really sets the tone for the physical challenges of the AT. Each day in the first week was either about the same intensity or worse. Several ascents - Horse Gap, Tesnatee Gap, Blood Mountain, Kelly’s Knob, etc. - have solidified their sordid slopes in my mind forever.
The blunt truth is that the actual act of hiking the AT is (for most of the day) a mildly-maddening, repetitive march over steep hills, day in and day out. It can feel like you’ve walked for ages, only for a glance at your map to tell you it’s been a mere .3 miles.
This isn’t unexpected to me per se, but man - thru-hiking can really suck! It’s basically living like it’s leg day at the gym, eight hours every day, up to six days in a row, while your footing is twigs, rocks, roots, and harsh slopes. With no shower!
Oh, although that said, I did get a small taste of hiking thru rain - naturally, while I was climbing a brutal set of switchbacks up a mountain - around day 4 or 5. The day couldn’t decide if it wanted to keep raining or not, so I kept having to sling off the pack to change in and out of my stuffy, non-breathable rain gear. Not fun, but something I will inevitably be doing more of.
What my first week of this moderate, self-inflicted torment ultimately amounted to was a 77.6-mile stretch from Amicalola Falls to Dick’s Creek Gap (where I hopped a shuttle into Hiawassee, GA with some pals5 for a much-needed rest day). My legs became very stiff, though not painful. I was an absolute sweat factory - I had the salt rings on my clothes to prove it. And I stunk to high heaven.
So… you could say it’s been a tough hike so far, for sure. But I survived week one!
The Terrain
Of course, the backdrop to this lower body cartilage pulverization is fortunately absolutely lovely.
Most miles in week 1 passed through post-winter deciduous forest (not unlike Louisville!). Owing to the higher altitudes, the AT seemed to still be getting the memo that it’s Spring now.
Still, even if the forest canopy (and thus blessed, sweet shade) was a bust, that meant that temps stayed low and that there were beautiful sights everywhere. The lack of leaves let me see the hills and valleys around me,6 and I took - no joke - 500 pictures of the sprouting plants, animal life, and vistas of early Spring in the first week alone (Damn you, Substack, for how few photos you let me put on these posts!).
Since a full photo dump isn’t feasible (maybe I’ll post a Google Drive link in a later post) here are a few of my favorites so far:
Even the early plant life was a treat. Mayapples - a personal favorite - and ferns had started sprouting through the drab litter of the forest floor.
Animal life stayed small (no sign of bears yet!), but there sure were plenty of flies and gnats zipping around (oh joy!). Later in the week though, the warmer temperatures did give me a few other fun encounters, including-
Hey! Cool Bug!
Indulgent considering the whining about email length and “part 2” and such, but this is still happening.
This palm-sized showboat is a luna moth, Actias luna, and a freshly-emerged one! It was likely only an hour or two into its adulthood, given that its wings were still a bit droopy and its abdomen was so large; the first hours of these beautiful green moths’ post-pupa second lives are spent pumping hemolymph (bug blood!) out of their body and into their wings to unfurl them after all the time spent cramped up during metamorphosis. Weird! But lovely!
So, What’s Next?
Stay tuned for a part two - I’ve yapped enough here without even mentioning much about the camping and the people, which makes this incomplete. More on my fellow hikers and AT living will be here soon.
-Michael
Though this is a misnomer - Hiawassee requires a lot of walking to get anywhere.
Shockingly close, really. Mom and dad and I all saw it and each went “oh!” in surprise.
Ironically, this title was last held by the AT itself - I hiked a section in Pennsylvania called Lehigh Gap for a bit over a mile, and it was a really rough climb at the time. By now on the AT, I’ve already hiked several different days which each have been more strenuous than that. My old “tough hikes” are literally just a Tuesday now. What a wild feeling.
Specifically because they assumed that thru-hiking is impossible, neighsayers (sensible people) that they were.
More on this and my other fellow leg pain sufferers in part 2! Stay tuned!
Sometimes to my detriment - I remember seeing Blood Mountain in the distance and thinking “there’s no way the trail goes up that, right?” maybe only an hour before I reached where the trail indeed went up it.
Great recap, son! Your AT hike is inspiring to all who know and love you. So very proud of you!
I love reading what you’re experiencing. I’m so happy for you and proud to say I know you. Happy trails - or non-trails since you’re so far off the beaten path. 🥾