ATKO 2016

Today was our first day at Amicalola Falls for the 2016 ATKO! To keep it short, we hiked a few miles, sat in seminars for a few hours ate some dank food & met some kick-ass people!

Seminars

We sat in on a number of seminars starting at 8am. Topics included sustainability of the trail, Leave No Trace, the community around the trail and much more! Some notable presentations were AWOL’s presentation where he shared stories about his thru-hike and some info about his guide, Gene Espy, the 2nd ever thru-hiker and the Gear-Lab presentation on ultra-light backpacking.

Hiking

We decided to go see the falls while we’re here! We hiked down the 400+ steps and got some great views of the falls! After returning up the ridiculous amount of stairs we learned that we had to go back down to the visitor center to check in for our thru-hike. We descended the million and 5 steps again and successfully checked in! Josh registered as hiker 400 to come through Amicalola and register his thru hike and I followed at 401. After making friends with the girl registering us we experienced our first trail magic and got a quick ride back to the top!

People

We met some awesome people today while hiking and hanging around the lodge. Big shout out to some friendly people we met; Tippytoes, Sherpa-Crow, CREWZER, the owner of LightHeart Gear & his family, two thru-hikers from Australia, Clarity, and many more!

Food

Ramen that was ghetto cooked in our hotel room. Red-velvet Hostess cupcakes, and the magical AYCE prime-rib from the lodge restaurant.

Our first day was a complete success and has left us anxiously awaiting out start date on Monday!

Hakuna Matata & Good Vibes!