We made the four hour drive down to Springer Mountain in the Chatahoochee Forest... A place I was surprised to be again! After making the 1-mile trek up from the parking lot with my dad, we took some photos and said our goodbyes about 0.2 miles back down the trail at the official start of the BMT. A few hundred feet in we saw a plaque dedicated to Benton MacKaye and began our day in the hot GA mountains. After doing copious amounts of downhill, we took a break at Three Forks, where the AT and BMT meet for a mile. We also took a 0.2 mile round trip to see Long Branch Falls, which is where NoKey camped on his first night on the AT.
Our climb after this was a little steeper and we decided to camp in the unnamed gap at the Bottom of the hill. As soon as we stopped, thunder got loud and we set up the tent and quickly jumped inside for an hour and a half due to a thunderstorm. Looks like our timing was good! We never found the spring here so I backtracked the quarter mile up the hill to one we saw on our way down for water. Nerves didn't let me get much sleep the first night!
Long Branch Falls
A blaze leading the way to "The Bald".