by Peter J Barr » Fri Dec 17, 2010 9:43 pm
Hi Steve,
In addition to Springer and Blood, the AT also goes directly over Blue Mountain, Levelhand Mountain (well, this was a 10 yard side trip with a side trail to a view), Cowrock Mountain (not the P1K peak), Tray Mountain (but not the Habersham cohp unless you made extra effort to get it), Young Lick Mountain, Rocky Mountain, Sassafras Mountain, Sheeprock Top, and Justus Mountain. It also goes over a few unranked peaks including Ramrock Mountain, Granny Top, As Knob, Poor Mountain, and Wolf Laurel Top.
It's also possible that you summited a few more peaks that the AT now skirts around, prior to reroutes. Hawk Mountain is one possibility that comes to mind, though I am unsure of its reroute date. Many others (Black Mountain and Horsetrough for example) were original AT peaks, but haven't been on the trail route since the 1960s of earlier.
A lot of people who have hiked sections of the AT simply claim a summit because its name was listed in the AT Data Book or other guidebook. This is an ignorant practice. The AT Data Book and similar guides list dozens more named summits as landmarks, complete with mileage. However, the books are most often simply listing the high point of the trail itself on the shoulder of a named mountain. Complicating matters, the USGS topo's depection of the AT route is outdated considering decades of reroutes that invariably took the trail OFF of the summits and put it around their sides; and MyTopo, though more current, is alarmingly inaccurate in representing the route of the AT compared to what actual GPS tracks prove the route to be.
Similarly, the AT goes very close to the top of many summits, and even a GPS track will show its route generally through the center of the topo contour. However, many of these require a side trip of anywhere from a few steps to a tenth of a mile to actually touch the high point. If you didn't touch it, you didn't bag it.
I've noticed this misreporting to be at a minimum on LOJ, which seems to attract more serious, knowledgeable peakbaggers. However, the practice is an epidemic on peakbagger.com.
For those GA peaks that I listed above, unless otherwise noted, the AT actually does cross right over their summits, and I would credit any hiker of the GA section who hiked the trail itself to also have bagged those peaks.
Thanks, John, for posting Georgia. It was an early Christmas present, and briefly transported me back among the fond memories of the first week of my AT thru-hike last March. Oh how I miss the Trail....