SC Gov. Mark Sanford, the running angle on the story of the moment

I didn't really notice the story about Mark Sanford, the missing governor of South Carolina, until his staff issued the hiking alibi for his absence. "The Governor is hiking on the Appalachian Trail." I only lived in South Carolina for a year, and I'm not an expert on the Appalachian Trail, but I do know that the Appalachian Trail doesn't run through South Carolina. It's not a long drive from Columbia to the trail, but would it be politically astute for the Governor to take a hiking holiday out of state? It seemed unlikely, but it was interesting to think about running into the Governor on Rocky Mountain or near Hogpen Gap.

Unfortunately, that cover story didn't last long and then the squalid truth came out.

As it turns out, Mark Sanford was originally from Florida, so the Miami Herald printed some background on his life in this state. Born in Fort Lauderdale in 1960, Sanford attended Fort Lauderdale's Westminster Academy, where he ran on the track team "and was state ranked as a short-distance runner," according to the Herald. Well, earlier this month I posted some results of the 1977 Florida high school state track and field championships, and there's Sanford in the 1A boys' 880-yard run.

880-Yard Run
1. Bobby Wilson (Freeport) 2:02.7
2. Kelly Brown (Mount Dora Bible) 2:05.0
3. Stephen Chester (Tallahassee North Florida Christian) 2:06.2
4. Don Hubbard (St Augustine St Joseph's) 2:07.0
5. Mark Sanford (Fort Lauderdale Westminster) 2:07.6
6. Mark Johnis (Montverde Academy) 2:07.7

The 1977 track season took place at the end of Sanford's junior year at Westminster. Before his senior year the Sanford family moved to the South Carolina lowcountry. I don't know whether he continued to run high school track there, or if he ran at Furman University, where he did his undergraduate studies.

Links:

• Results of the FHSAA Boys' Track and Field Championships
  http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2009/06/1977-fhsaa-boys-track-and-field.html
  
  
• Westminster Academy Boys' Track and Field records progression
  http://www.wacad.edu/rez/wastaff/kkey/Boys Records Progression copy.pdf
  
  
• My own Appalachian Trail hiking plan
  http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2009/01/500-year-plan.html
  

500-Year Plan

I did my first walk on the Appalachian Trail in July, 2005. It wasn't a week-long plunge into the wilderness or an amazing athletic feat of mileage covered in an afternoon. We just parked at the Byron Herbert Reece Memorial off of US 19, walked the approach trail to Flat Rock Gap, the on up to the summit of Blood Mountain on the Appalachian Trail. Oh, and then back to the car. Possibly everyone who lives within 500 miles of Neels Gap and owns a pair of hiking shoes has done this walk.

Studying books about the Appalachian Trail, I decided I probably was never going to be a through hiker. I enjoy sleeping indoors in a bed too much to backpack from Georgia to Maine (or the other direction). I idly considered a scheme of doing section hikes over the years till I had hiked the entire Appalachian Trail. To some extent, it's not so idle. Whenever we're in north Georgia, I try to work in a hike that includes part of the Appalachian Trail. So now I tell people that I'm on the "Five-Hundred-Year Plan"--that in 500 years I'll have hiked the entire trail.

So am I on pace?

According to mileages in the Appalachian Trail Guide to North Carolina-Georgia, that first walk was 1.4 miles. On 8 August 2006, our walk included the stretch from Springer Mountain to Three Forks, 4.1 miles. On 9 August 2006 we covered the trail from Blood Mountain to Jarrard Gap, 2.6 miles. 2 September 2007, a leisurely stroll from Three Forks to Long Creek Falls, .8
miles. On 18 November 2007 a walk over Wildcat Mountain from Hog Pen Gap to Tesnatee Gap, 0.9 miles. On 2 May 2008 I finally got the bit from Flat Rock Gap to Neels Gap, 1 mile. And on 23 August 2008 we went from Unicoi Gap to Indian Grave Gap, 2.7 miles. So, in all, that totals to 13.5 miles in the last three-and-a-half years or so, or less than four miles a year. The Guide lists the length of the Appalachian Trail at 2,173.9 miles. At this rate I'll finish the trail in just under 564 years. The "Five-Hundred-Year Plan" is in jeopardy.

Which, aside from being a cheap excuse to play games with numbers, is my way of admitting that I'm never going to do all of the Appalachian Trail. Wherever the Appalachian Trail goes there are just too many other trails calling out to be walked. And closer to home I haven't even done all of the Florida Trail in the Big Bend, let alone all the more attractive trails in the area.

And I've still got that thing about wanting to sleep in a bed at night.

Rocky Mountain Trail

While planning a stay in Unicoi State Park in August 2008 we were looking for some hikes in the area. Several guides mentioned a loop hike that included the Rocky Mountain Trail. However, every source I looked at started from a trailhead on United States Forest Service Road 283. If possible, I wanted to avoid repeating previous adventures we had while driving on the Forest Service Roads in the Chattahoochee National Forest. Fortunately, it's possible to keep your car on paved highways by using the Appalachian Trail as a 0.9 mile approach to the loop.

So our hike started at Unicoi Gap on SR 75. The gap is well-marked on the highway, and there is a sizable parking area on the east side of the road where the hike begins. Near the south end of the parking lot is a boulder on which the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club has placed a bronze Appalachian Trail plaque. Just beyond this the Appalachian trail heads into the woods and up Rocky Mountain on the way to Maine. That's where we started climbing.

The trail does climb rapidly up from the parking area. We had read that for part of the ascent we were going to be hiking along a creek that we'd cross at 0.6 miles, but drought conditions were severe that summer and we didn't see any water at all. (Back in the valley, the Chattahoochee River was too low for tubing.) In fact, of the three water sources along the route that we read about, all three were dry. Hopefully rainfall will pick up again before Atlanta residents have to give up washing their cars and watering their lawns.

One landmark that turned out to be certain was the intersection of the Appalachian Trail with the Rocky Mountain Trail. At a bend in the trail the blue-blazed Rocky Mountain Trail went off to the left, while we kept to the right and stayed on the white-blazed Appalachian Trail. We had read that this intersection was 0.9 miles from Unicoi Gap, so the summit of Rocky Mountain at 1.3 miles from the gap must be another 0.4 miles further on. This is probably true, but it's hard to tell when you're actually at the summit. As you reach the top, the slope of the trail gradually decreases, so it's hard to tell when you're actually at the peak--assuming the trail crosses over the peak. When the trail started going down again, we concluded that we had been at the summit, but we weren't sure when. There are some attractive grassy spots near the trail in this area which seem to have been used for camping.

Shortly after we started down the mountain, the trail crossed some rock outcroppings; the absence of trees at these points gives you unobstructed views to the south. We made our lunch stop here. One unmistakably odd-shaped mountain in the distance was Yonah Mountain, probably the only mountain that I could pick out of a line up. The guidebooks invariably mention that John Muir stopped by Yonah in 1867. The visit has been mentioned so often that I decided it must have been an important episode in Muir's career. So I looked it up in his 1916 book, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf:

Reached Mount Yonah in the evening. Had a long conversation with an old Methodist slaveholder and mine owner. Was hospitably refreshed with a drink of fine cider.

Well, not as exciting as I thought.

After lunch, we continued on the rapidly descending trail toward Indian Grave Gap, yet another macabre place-name on the Georgia Appalachian Trail. At this gap, 2.7 miles from Unicoi Gap, the Appalachian Trail intersects with the Andrews Cove Trail, the blue blazes of which we saw heading off to the right. The trail also crosses USFS 283, where we turned left, leaving the Appalachian Trail to follow blue blazes up the road. We were now on the Rocky Mountain Trail. We were a bit concerned about missing the spot at 3.3 miles where the trail left USFS 283 to head left into the woods, but we needn't have worried. The Forest Service had put out a highway sign to mark the turn: ROCKY MTN TR NO 114. I'm not sure what all that was supposed to mean, but for us it meant, "Turn here!"

Once in the woods we resumed climbing along the slopes of Rocky Mountain. This time we weren't going to the summit, we were just headed back to the intersection of the Rocky Mountain Trail and the Appalachian Trail, where we'd complete the loop. This was 4.4 miles into our hike, just past a small campsite. We turned right onto the Appalachian Trail and started to make our way back down the mountain to Unicoi Gap. It's as steep going down as it is going up, and though the ascent works your hearts and lungs, you certainly feel the descent in your knees and thighs. Even so, it was faster work in this direction and we were soon back at our car in Unicoi Gap.

Here's a summary of the route:

MILEAGE	NOTES
0.0	Unicoi Gap (2949 feet). Start from the parking lot on the east side of SR 75. Find the white-blazed Appalachian Trail near the boulder adorned with a bronze Appalachian Trail plaque, and begin climbing.
0.9	Intersection with the blue-blazed Rocky Mountain Trail. Continue to the right, following the white blazes of the Appalachian Trail.
1.3	The summit of Rocky Mountain (4017 feet).
1.5	Rock outcrops with some great views to the south, including a view of Yonah Mountain.
2.7	Indian Grave Gap (3113 feet). Intersection with the blue-blazed Andrews Cove Trail and with United States Forest Service Road 283. Turn left onto USFS 283.
3.3	Turn left, following the blue blazes of the Rocky Mountain Trail off of USFS 283 and into the trees.
4.4	Back at the intersection of the Rocky Mountain Trail and the Appalachian Trail. Head to right retracing your steps along the Appalachian Trail, starting the descent back to Unicoi Gap.
5.3	Unicoi Gap (2949 feet).

I found these books useful in planning the hike:

Grove, Doris (1998). Exploring the Appalachian Trail: Georgia North Carolina Tennessee.

Homan, Tim (2001). The Hiking Trails of North Georgia.

Jack Coriell, et al. (ed). Appalachian Trail Guide to North Carolina-Georgia.