Wed, Sep 21 2011 - Len Foote Hike Inn Midweek Trip at Special Club Rate! (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Bobby Marie, Charlie Cottingham Participants: Charlie Cottingham, Bobby Marie, Ron, Lorri, Laura, CB Genrich, Sharon Alaimo, Richard K, Joyce T., Bill T., Jim Martin, Steve, Cathy, Larry Cooper, Kathie Snyder

Click for Album

  Thanks to the 17 cheerful and sociable AOCers who joined me for this special overnighter in celebration of the Fall Equinox, including my good friend Bobby Marie who did a masterful job as my co-leader.  Special thanks also to Joyce Taaffe who has shared the colorful FaceBook album of her & her husband Bill's photos.  It's a wonderful mix of people shots, mountainside vistas and whimsy linked here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150384497230260.404776.540275259&l=ce5c1d165a&type=1

  This was truly one of my most enjoyable and memorable trips since I was first a guest at the Hike Inn just after its 1998 opening.  As always the friendly staff treated us royally, with a tour of the facility after our Wed check-in, a delicious dinner and breakfast, comfortable beds and a blazing fire in the spacious Sunrise Room overlooking the forested valley below.
   We were lucky to have we had perfect "fall equinox" hiking weather with no rain at all.  During our 5-mile hike to the Inn from the State Park several of us enjoyed taking a little half-mile unmarked spur trail to visit the top of Cochran Falls, a "virtual twin" of Amicalola Falls (in the adjoining wilderness) that few visitors are aware of or ever get to see.  We had a spectacular panorama from the boulders atop the falls where it begins its plunge into the forested valley below. That evening the night sky cooperated by clearing enough on Wed evening for some excellent sky viewing after an informal Astronomy seminar.
  Although it was overcast at the 7:25 sunrise time on Thursday several of us enjoyed visiting the Sunrise Room's adjoining "Star Base" and visualizing the ray of light from the due-east-rising sun that would be passing through the "keyhole" and striking the back of the rocky grotto at this fall-equinox time of year if it hadn't been cloudy.
  After a hearty breakfast in the dining hall we had a fine time hiking back to our cars via a 5-mile portion of the AT Approach Trail that connects Amicalola Falls with the AT's southern terminus atop Springer Mountain.
 This trip is likely to be remembered not only for how much fun we had together, but also for two different "too-close-for-comfort"  encounters with venomous copperhead snakes.  I almost stepped on one that was crossing the Hike Inn Trail about a mile south of the Inn.  Then Jim almost stepped on another just outside the door of the Hike Inn Dining Room.  We got great photos of both of them -- no harm done to them or to us!
  - Submitted by Trip Co-Leader Charlie Cottingham, Sep 22, 2011.  Bobby and I encourage our trip participants to email their photo-links and personal anecdotes to add to this writeup!