Great American Eclipse 2017 atop Cowrock Mountain on the Appalachian Trail

Yesterday morning at 4:30am Meagan and I packed our stuff and headed up into the north Georgia mountains. we had decided to head to Tesnatee Gap and hike up Cowrock Mountain. Having been there before, I knew there was a good southern view for the eclipse. The weather looked fair and I was excited to experience this monumental event.

We luckily found parking and waited till sunrise to hike up the mountain. It was a tough slog as I was carrying several cameras, two tripods, and some huge lenses - my pack was 40+ pounds. Upon arrival we found some folks already there, having camped from the night previous.

I setup for the eclipse, and waited. Here is Meagan posing with my makeshift tarp for shade and my big 500mm f/5.6 Pentax lens:

The eclipse began around 1pm, with the sun slowly being covered:

The light started to get rather strange and we all saw the eclipsed sun in the shadows on the ground:

I took a few pictures of the eclipse viewers on the top of the mountain:

 

As the sun was approaching totality a bunch of clouds came in. We were getting dismayed that we would miss it.

But then all of the clouds parted and completely disappeared. The big event was coming.

And, totality!

 

I also shot this image with my film camera:

What an awesome experience! I am still going through some images and video that I shot. Meagan and I are already talking about travelling to the eclipse in 2024. We were lucky to have such a beautiful location to go to and that the weather held out.