Serenbe

Glen recently posted on Strava: "Shop Trails" and there was some meandering route around the Serenbe area.

Eons ago, me, Mark, and Eddie O'Dea rode from downtown Atlanta out to Serenbe and back, and at the time, I'd seen a community plan that included some trails, but none had been built, and I basically forgot about it. I called Glen the next day and confirmed that there were, in fact, trails all over the property, and various customers of his ride them all the time.

Interesting! The trails are marked as only open to Serenbe residents and guests, but Glen's a resident, and he'll vouch for me as a guest.

So, last Sunday, and several days this week, I've been out that way, exploring to my heart's content.

The trails are an absolute nighmare of a spiderweb, and though there are maps all over the place, they aren't immeditaely helpful. The maps show what used to be there, but over the years, new construction has truncated many of the trails. They're still there, but they don't go through like they used to. The maps show colored loops, but the blazes on the trails predate the maps, and don't match the loop colors. There are lots of little signs everywhere pointing to "Inn" or "Ruins" or "Indian Rock" but those things are often miles away, and signs between here and there have gone missing. So it's tough to follow them to a given destination. Plus, there are TONS of "connector trails", most of which get as much or more traffic than the main trails.

All that said, there is still a bunch of great stuff out there, you just have to spend some time figuring out how to get to it.

For example:

Not far behind the shop is an area called Deer Run, with some old buildings and ruins on the property:

...and daffodils.

It's daffodil season.

There are a couple of small "waterfalls" (shoals) as well:

And if you get well out of the community, there's a trail that runs along Cedar Creek before eventually crossing it at a nice little shoal.

Just up an incredibly steep hill from that is "Indian Rock" which I failed to get a photo of, but there's some exposed rock nearby, which for some reason I did take a photo of.

I didn't actually see anything super interesting at Indian Rock. There might be some petroglyphs or something that I missed though. My heart rate was pegged when I rode through, and I could barely think.

There is some legitimate singletrack out there, especially on the Cedar Creek Trail and the Coweta Trail, but a lot of it is doubletrack and old roadbeds. It's definitely more of an "experience the terrain, the forest, and the sights" kind of trail system, than an "experience the trail" kind of system.

The trails are lovely though.

On the south side, there's a bit of singletrack that leads from a cemetery...

...over to the ruins of some farm-related building.

Nothing indicates what the building is, and though it looks house-like, I hesitate to declare it a house. It's just in a very odd place - wedged down into a hole, only a few feet from a creek. If there's a road leading to it, I couldn't immediately find it. The trail I came in on was steep, twisty singletrack. I couldn't immediately make out a chimney, but there was a pipe coming out of it, and a vent, both on the creek side. It struck me as a store-house more than a house you'd live in, but honestly, I have no idea. For all I know, the ground has slumped and eroded a bunch over the years, and it was, at one time, an ideal spot for a house.

There was an intact rock wall nearby though, which kind-of dispells the notion that the land has changed a lot.

Who knows?

On the Coweta Trail, there were several long rock walls.

It looked like they were used to terrace the land, to mitigate erosion. In antiquity it would have been a pasture. I've seen plenty of old terraced pastures in the woods, but I don't remember seeing any that were terraced with actual rock walls like this one. Usually somebody just leveled parallel terraces into the existing slope, not bothering to shore them up.

Back up at the north end of things, there's a bunch of interesting stuff too, all right on or just off the trail...

Hippie Bus!

Some wind sculptures:

An actual sculpture:

There are actually lots of sculptures around the property, especially near the Inn.

There's an Animal Village near the inn too, with pigs and chickens, and goats. Sophie loves goats, so I took photos of goats and sent them to her.

Goats!

There are some stables across from the inn. Under some set of circumstances you can ride the horses on the trails that I'd been riding. I'm not sure if you have to be a resident, or a guest at the inn, or if you can just rent horses, or what, but whatever the deal is, there are horses, and one of them was hanging out at the corner of the pasture, as close as possible to people, with his head over the fence, just dying to be scratched and petted.

He did not care about my bike at all, and I gave him all the pats and scratches I could. He was all pushing his head into my shoulder the whole time like "Love me!"

Heh, there was also this call box:

...and at first glance I read it like Please Press 'oooh' rather than Please Press zero-zero-zero, which made me laugh.

Well away from all of that, back at the south end of things, there's a larger waterfall, with water that actually falls.

.

Unexpectedly spectacular.

There's also this earthwork sculpture...

...which was interesting, but not as interesting as that dog. He was even more friendly than the horse, and I scratched and petted him half to death as well. His owner was like "He's really friendly!" I'll say.

There's some weird sculpture up the hill too, but it was kind of far away.

There might be a trail that runs by it, I haven't explored every trail out there yet.

I kept riding way out and way back, and on one of the trips back, I found this rock labyrinth.

So cool.

There are also several lakes on the property, and a park, and some playgrounds. Not to mention restaurants, and the bike shop.

So much stuff out there. If I lived there, I'd have a lot to do. I'm pretty fortunate to know someone. I'll probably do one or two more rides, just to make sure I've hit everything, then leave it alone for a while, or maybe do some social rides with Glen and the local guys. I love exploring on my own, but I don't want to wear out my welcome.