Dawsonville and Elachee

I expected this weekend to suck. Obligations at work required me to be within 2 hours of internet access at all time. Yesterday I tried to do a bunch of stuff with my family, but it just turned out to be hectic. I did take the kids to ride their bikes, but I scraped and bruised up my back up doing something so stupid with Sophie's bike that it could have won $10K on America's Funniest Videos, if we'd had a camera. I figured today would suck too. But...

Kathryn had a photography club meeting at 2, but I managed to get up early and get in a morning ride. Basically I rode from Cumming to Dawsonville and back.

There's some cool stuff on Hwy 9:

Grogans Grocery:



And more of those weird fruits, this time just along the side of the road. Oddly, along the side with no trees on it.



Monster truck for sale...



... and a perfect opportunity to study the duality of man, or at least the duality of Dave. While one half of my mind weeps at the environment-crushing potential of this abomination, the other half appreciates the engineering; the time, effort and skill... man that thing looks freakin' awesome.

The courthouse.



The old jail.



City Hall AND Motorsports Hall of Fame. Same building.



Lumpkin Campground, est. 1830.



They had a different idea of campgrounds back then I guess.

The ride was cool, I saw some cool stuff, but I'd stolen the seat off my road bike to race at Tumbling Creek a few weeks back and it was poorly adjusted today. I stopped to mess with it 4 or 5 times, but it's still not right. Also, I never felt warmed up or loose. I guess that's what I get for taking almost 2 weeks off. Good enough though. I got home in time for Kathryn to go to her meeting, jumped in the shower and let the ammonia fumes burn my eyes out.

Kathryn took off, and me and the girlies got down to business.

First we tried to find a place to eat in Buford. I'd seen a bunch of restaurants in the historic Main Street area, but apparently nothing is open on Sunday in the city of Buford. We ended up at Fosters Grille by the mall, ate, and shared a large chocolate shake.



Post milkshake, we eased on over to Gainesville, and the Elachee Nature Center. I've ridden bikes at Chicopee since 2000, but it was only last year that I learned there were hiking trails there too. As some unnatural force compels me to set foot or tire on every square inch of dirt in Georgia, it was criminal that I hadn't yet set foot on those.

We checked the map at the nature center. Wow, I thought there were just a few miles of trails, but it looked like there might be about ten. This might take a couple of trips.

We chose the Dunlap trail, grabbed a map and got moving. The trails reminded me of the old Chicopee trails. Some were well placed and purpose-built. Others followed old roadbeds. Some were clean and flowing, others were chunky and eroded, screaming for some pro trailbuilder to come work his magic. Lots of variety. Just the way I like it.

There were a few cool points of interest along the way.

An old dam.



I guess an old, mangled bridge?



An awesome bridge.



Some old homestead ruins.



Stone steps.



Walnut creek.



The girls had a great time. We met a bunch of friendly people and their dogs. Both of them are getting good at navigating with a map.

Around 4:45, we were out of the woods. We'd planned on going somewhere so they could ride their bikes, but it was getting kind of late and the usual places were pretty far away. As I realized the problem, the solution presented itself. On Sunday, Gainesville College has a billion huge, empty parking lots. The career center looked good. Problem solved.

The Iz, blazing.



She might even be ready for the Mosquito Flatts.

Sophie almost figured out how to ride without her training wheels yesterday. Today she got it.



She has work to do on turning and on getting started, but she made a lot of progress today.

For a day that I expected to suck, it was turning out pretty good. But there would be more. My dad got into town early that morning. We met them for pizza in Vinings and watched the Saints beat Carolina. AND, on top of all that, he brought my truck back! He'd taken it to his shop in Dallas a few months back and they did a bunch of difficult work done on it, like changing the evaporator and heater cores, replacing the timing chain, and diagnosing some other problems. I've got AC again! Just in time for winter :)

Little Skeenah Creek

I wanted to do the Airport Ride with my bro, but last weekend I stole the seat off of my road bike so I could race that 6 hour, and I still haven't put it back. I didn't feel like riding 70 miles on a half adjusted seat and on that saddle sore I got last weekend, so I bailed. Lame.

I called my buddy Andrew from work to see if he wanted to go hiking but he left me a nearly unintelligible voicemail in response. Sounded like he had an awesome time last night.

Solo.

Ages ago, on a topo map, I noticed a road leading north from Hwy 60 at the foot of Tooni Mountain, winding it's way up into the headwaters of Little Skeenah Creek. Up in those headwaters, on the map, was the word "Falls". I'd once checked out the spot where the road T'ed into Hwy 60 and it looked pretty overgrown. As such, I'd written off the entire road. Today I finally got curious enough to go see what it was really like.

On Doublehead Gap Road, just north of Doublehead Gap proper, I saw 2 cyclists riding toward me, heads down, working hard. Their kits looked familiar, do I know them? Yes! Norma and Johnny! Woohoo! What are the odds. Well, it's been raining so much lately, there is no viable singletrack in Georgia, and though there are ten billion FS road, there are only a couple of popular ones. So, maybe the odds aren't too bad. Still though, it was cool. We chatted a bit, but we all had places to go, and soon enough we parted.

I parked at the BMK trailhead on Hwy 60 and spent 20 minutes deciphering the maze of trails in the immediate vicinity. It took a while, but eventually, I was on track. And the trail looked like this:



...from about 30 yards in, all the way to Little Skeenah Creek. So much for overgrown. I did see some ATV tracks. Naughty, naughty. It looked like pretty light use though. I spent the first couple of miles practicing how to "follow the terrain"; not using the compass, just keeping track of where I was by comparing the map to the terrain. It's easy to do on a ridge, or up along a creek, but a lot harder when you're sidehilling, even on a trail. I did allright, but I've got more work to do.

Eventually I got to Little Skeenah.



I'd hoped there'd be a trail or something, but no, no trail. I just had to follow the creek. And apparently I wasn't the only one. Rhett R. had been up through there back in 2008. Or, at least, that's what he carved into a beech tree along the bank. Thanks, Rhett, for memorializing your epic journey. Without that insightful carving, no doubt every visitor would have passed by that tree and wondered, most likely aloud: in 2008, was Rhett R. here? And none might have known, though the question burn in our minds and torment us unto the grave. Surely, none might have known. But, thanks to his godlike foresight and whittling skill unmatched among even the greatest works of the renaissance artists, we do know. Yes. Rhett R. was here.

Further upstream...











I guess the map was right. Falls.

Where there is one cascade, there could be another. I would find out.

Yep. Another.



And another.



And another.



And another.



Way up at the top, there was a trail too, and not too overgrown. I followed it upstream until it disappeared, and back down until it tee'd into the road.

As luck would have it, there was another little waterfall there too.



Jackpot on the waterfalls, eh?

I'd planned on following the road around until it hit private property, then cutting back across the middle, but it was getting kind of late and I didn't have quite enough time for that. Maybe next time.

I'd kind of also hoped that some side trail would lead up over Licklog Mountain. Didn't find that either. I did some other side trails, including a BMK connector, and a trail that might lead up to Wallalah. Next time...

By the way, the entire road was marked with triple-blue-blazes.



I've seen the triple-blue-blaze everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I assume that way back, the logging companies went in and marked the trees, then came back through with the bulldozer, following the blazes. Usually I've seen them bordering old roadbeds, but occasionally there's a line of them in the middle of the woods, where there is no road. Maybe they never got around to building that road. Or maybe I'm wrong about what they mean.

Now that I think about it, there are a bunch of different colors. Red rings mark the forest boundary. Triple-blue appear to mark the path of roads. I've seen turquoise blazes too, and orange. In Rabun county, there are several trees marked with purple. Up along Two-Run creek, there are blazes of every color all over. No idea what they mean. Sure wish I knew.

Speaking of colors. There were a lot of beech trees up there, all turning yellow. Come on Rhett, why didn't you carve your name in every one of them? Now I'm going to wonder if, in 2008, you were there or not.





The fall colors sure don't last long. Next week they'll all be gone, I bet. Good I got to see them while I had the chance.

Skeenah!

Clinton Farms

Halloween!

My bro was having everybody over for dinner and trick-or-treating. The girls and I had a bit of time before the festivities and seeing as my bro lives in Douglasville, Clinton Farms is in Douglasville, and I've been wanting to get over there to take some pics, it was a win-win for everybody involved. That is, except for my kids, who didn't really want to walk around in the woods in the rain before trick-or-treating. Basically it was just good for me.

It wasn't actually raining, just misting a little.

I was foolish and did not bring a map. I thought I knew my way around. Ha. Ha. I almost did, but not quite. We did eventually figure out where we were going, but we probably walked a mile further than we needed to.

The Clinton House.





Actually, that one was easy, it was right by the parking lot.

The nature trail.



The lake.



Slickrock.



Not too excited.



More slickrock.



The powerline trail. We walked up and down this before I remembered there are 2 powerline cuts.



That was the epiphany. After that, we were good.

We found some feather aphids.



Awesome.

The first old cabin.



My bro and I went up inside that cabin once, but it was a lot less bent back then. One day it's just going to fall over.

The Civil War Era log cabin.



There are actually signs saying don't go in it. Apparently they had electricity.



And, a large tree overhanging the left side with ten thousand of those weird fruits we saw at Bowman's Island under it.



Seriously, what are these? They are fragrant, but I can't place the scent. The outside is kind of like an orange, and there's like a quarter inch layer of fleshy fruit surrounding the worlds hardest pit. The juice stains your fingers brown.

Old Pool Road.



At some point it was a road. Now it's so eroded that we had a hard time even walking on it.

That first cabin is off to the north of Old Pool Road. There's this white house too.



It's held up a lot better than the cabin, except for the multiple trees crushing it.

There is also this cabin, past the log cabin.



And it's associated shack.



All day I kept asking the kids to identify trees. Sophie said maple every time. It turns out there are relatively few maples out there. But, there was this one, with it's leaves spilled out all over the ground.



On the way out of the park, I noticed yet another chimney.



There's a graveyard out there too, and a chapel, and another chimney somewhere. Maybe some other stuff too.

No time for that though. We had candy to collect.