CARTECAY, Ga. – The whole notion sounds preposterous: walk 2,175 miles from Maine to Georgia with 50 pounds on your back while fending off flies, mosquitoes, boredom, loneliness, pain and recurring doubts as to your sanity.
For what? Zen-like fulfillment, perhaps? A merit badge in sheer willpower?
 DAN CHAPMAN/Cox News Service Patrick McNally of Waycorss, Ga., stops on Georgia's Springer Mountain, the southernmost point of the 2,175-mile trial. For a larger, high resolution image, click HERE |
Each year 500 intrepid souls trek from Mount Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia, or vice-versa, and proclaim themselves Appalachian Trail through-hikers, a prized distinction among the hundreds of thousands of people who venture onto the trail each year, albeit for shorter stays.
Georgia, too, takes pride in its status as the trail's Southern terminus since 1925. Now, though, some folks in Alabama want to wrest that designation from Georgia.
They argue, rightly, that the Appalachian Mountains end in Alabama, not Georgia, and that Springer Mountain isn't hallowed ground. (In fact, it's in the middle of nowhere.)
The trail is an ever-shifting entity, they note, having changed direction, length and termini countless times since 1925. And, already, a network of trails link Springer to Mount Cheaha, not far from the proposed ending near Weogufka.
So why wouldn't a hearty through-hiker relish another 300 or so meandering miles along the lower spine of the Appalachians?
"It's long enough," says Jimmy Ingram who hiked the entire AT in 2000 and 2007. "It killed me twice doing it."
A bit of hyperbole, of course, something that Tom Cosby relishes. He's the chief marketing officer for the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce and the brains behind Alabama's still-young efforts to snatch the AT's Southern terminus from Georgia.
Cosby may offer publicity-inducing cash, possibly starting in 2010, to the first through-hikers who walk from the Heart of Dixie to Mount Katahdin.
"It would behoove Alabama's image for us to be publicly recognized as the end of the Appalachian trail," he says.
But Georgians, grown used to bi-state battles over water, football and auto-manufacturing plants, won't give up the AT terminus without a fight.
"Barring any compelling reason to move it, I think it would be best to leave it as it is," says Patrick McNally of Waycross, Ga., while resting atop Springer earlier this week. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods!"
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Through-hikers aren't big spenders, but day-hikers and over-nighters buy gas, eat at restaurants and stay at local motels and B&Bs. Georgia's tourist industry is not anxious to lose any of that revenue. Alabama, a state not renowned for its outdoor amenities, hopes an extension would lure more young professionals and, consequently, jobs.
Location of the Southern terminus, though, transcends pancake sales and economic development. Gary Monk, trails supervisor for the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club, the non-profit that maintains the 74-mile stretch of trail between Springer and North Carolina, takes pride in Georgia's national recognition as the AT's jumping-on and -off point.
"It makes me feel good to walk up to Springer Mountain and stand at the plaque that says this is the Southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail," says Monk, a retired Delta Air Lines pilot who opposes extending the trail into Alabama.
Lengthening the AT won't be easy. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy would need to be mollified and, although the trail's governing body hasn't taken an official position on Alabama's claim, Dave Startzell, the non-profit's executive director, says he's not keen on extending the trail.
The U.S. departments of Interior and Agriculture, which control much of the land the AT meanders through, must sign off. Congress would also have to amend the National Trails System Act that established the AT.
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At 3,782 feet, Springer offers a lovely westward (into Alabama) view, the peaks and valleys unfurling into a blue-gray horizon. Flies and bees buzz. Boulders and trees, stunted by storms, cover the summit. Posted warnings caution hikers against camping atop Springer "due to a history of bear incidents."
Two metal plaques bolted into stones commemorate the trail's end, although it's another 8.5 mile-hike to reach Amicalola Falls State Park and some semblance of civilization.
Springer wasn't always the Southern terminus, a fact noted by Cosby and other trail-shifting enthusiasts. In 1921, Benton Mackaye, the trail's visionary, laid out a footpath through the wilderness from the highest point in New England (Mount Washington in New Hampshire) to the highest point in the South (Mount Mitchell in North Carolina).
Four years later, Cohutta Mountain, west of Springer, was designated the terminus by the Appalachian Trail Conference. In 1930, though, the Southern jumping-off point was moved to Mount Oglethorpe, about 20 miles south of Springer. A statue honoring Gen. James Oglethrope, Georgia's founder, was erected atop the eponymous hilltop.
Progress, in the form of a smelly chicken farm, surrounded the general by 1958, so the terminus was moved to more bucolic, less pungent Springer Mountain in the Chattahoochee National Forest.
"The trail is fluid and since it's been changed before it can be changed again," Cosby says. "If it is truly an 'Appalachian' trail, then why not end it where the Appalachian Mountains end?"
That made sense to Mackaye, the trail's creator who proposed trail "extensions" to Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and down to Birmingham. He even projected "branch lines," including one heading toward Atlanta.
Mike Leonard, who founded the Alabama Trails Association in 1985, has greatly aided Alabama's cause. The former Birmingham attorney helped map the state's Pinhoti Trail, which runs along Alabama's eastern edge, and worked to acquire the land via acquisition or easement.
The Pinhoti and its Georgia counterpart join at the border in Cave Spring, Ga., and eventually reach Springer, providing a near-seamless trek from Alabama to Maine.
Last March, the Birmingham Chamber unveiled a bronze plaque atop Cheaha Mountain, Alabama's highest peak, celebrating the "long-awaited connection of the Pinhoti Trail to the world famous Appalachian Trail."
Daniel Barton, an Atlanta college student, relishes an expanded AT.
"That'd be cool – there'd be more trail to hike and add an extra challenge," says Barton, who was caught atop Springer in a fierce storm last Sunday. "I never really thought it was that important if the trail started here."
Dan Chapman writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: dchapman AT ajc.com.
