Buford Dam

Kathryn and I went for a walk around the Buford Dam area today. I'd noticed a day or two ago that on my trails site that I don't have photos of a couple of trailheads around there. It's just up the road so it seemed like a good place to go.

We parked at the Lower Overlook Park.

Here's that trailhead.

Exciting, eh?

Kathryn stopped to tie her shoe and I noticed she was surrounded by a veritable forest of poison ivy.

It's all turning red and dying these days, but it was amazing how tall it was growing. The stalks were even thick and woody.

We took the Laurel Ridge Trail down to the Lower Pool Park. It looked like the Corps had done some work since the last time I was there. They'd gravelled a few sections and trees were dropped across a bunch of the little side trails. I can't remember when I was last there, but it must have been a while ago because the trees they'd cut down had already turned old and black.

Here's the Lower Pool Lot.

Again, exciting, eh?

There are some nice sights at the Lower Pool though.

A footbridge over the Chattahoochee River:

The gorge cut to reroute the river through the powerhouse.

There's a parking lot up above the river that has almost never been open. Over the years I've lived here, it and the road leading to it were steadily deteriorating into gravel. At the top of a hill to the east, there was a park with a playground and some pavillions and we'd always noticed that it was deteriorating too. Last year though, everything was repaved and cleaned up and I swear I saw a few cars in the upper lot a couple of times.

Today we walked back along the newly repaved road, but it had a new gate across it at the top. The road leading to the Upper Overlook Park was marked private too and the "Upper Overlook Park" sign was missing.

We looped around and took the trail up to it though. It was all shiny and new looking, but definitely closed.

There were cones blocking the road leading in.

Kathryn said she'd read that several parks around the lake were being closed; there just isn't enough money to keep them open. It actually made sense for that one to be closed. It's up at the top of a hill with no bathrooms and no access to anything but the Laurel Ridge Trail. There are like 5 or 6 other parks within a mile that have direct lake or river access, and trail access, and bathrooms, and a larger lot. I guess it's too bad they decided to close it right after it was fixed up though.

Yay, I got the photos I wanted. Our walk was good too.

Score.