The Hike Inn

Last week for my husband’s birthday, we went to the Len Foote Hike Inn in Georgia. It involves a five mile hike up the mountain to the inn and the hike starts at Amicalola Falls State Park. This is also where the Appalachian Trail starts in Georgia. It rained a little on our three hour drive to the park but then it just became overcast.

We got to the park in time for the lunch buffet ($10.95) at the lodge before we headed up the mountain. Then the hike up the mountain was really lovely and I took a lot of pictures so it took us 3 hours to get to the lodge. We had time to sit on the balcony for about 30 minutes before we took the tour of the facility. They use a lot of “green” techniques like solar panels for heating water, compost toilets, and worm compost bins for food waste.

At 6pm, we were called to dinner which was family style. We sat at a table with two other couples: Doug and Ruth from Jessup, GA and Howard and Faye (I forgot where they were from). We had a lovely dinner and great conversation. After dinner, we watched a program presented by Richard Judy about the Appalachian Trail. After the program it was time to head to our room where my hubby and I shared the bottom bunk because I can’t sleep alone! Of course he woke up every 2-3 hours to go to the bathroom which involved getting dressed and heading to the bathhouse. Luckily, the walkway was completely covered because it poured down rain all night.

At 4:30am, I headed to the Sunrise room (game room/gathering room) so I could knit and watch a podcast on my Ipad. At 5am, I was joined by Darvin who has a family BBQ place called Poole’s BBQ in Ellijay that we will visit someday. He is retired teacher also so we had a great conversation. About 30 minutes later we were joined by Paul Longchamps (trail name is Orange Lightening) who would begin his Appalachian Trail Thru-hike that day. He will be blogging about his trip and I will follow along to see how he is doing (Orange Lightening Blog).

At 8am we were called for breakfast and it was delightful! We had scrambled eggs, bacon, peach spoonbread, cereal, and tea/coffee. The food here was exceptional! After breakfast we headed back down the mountain back to real life.

This was our third or fourth visit to the Hike Inn. If you have never been here, I highly recommend it. I like meeting new people and hiking up the mountain plus taking lots of photos. If you want to see the pictures I took, click HERE.

Original picture by Pat Hensley