Helen

Fall is here.



Not too hot, not too cold.

We've got a 6 hour race in Helen next week and I haven't been there in years. I guess no one has because there were two different group rides and a bunch of random folks up there today scouting it out.

One group was from the Sorba.org forum. Including my buddy Jason Milliron, recently recovered from a vertebral compression fracture that he, ironically, didn't get from riding his bike.



As cool as it would have been to ride with him and the Sorba guys, I was there to ride with the 2008 Trans-Georgia crew. Lots of folks rode the TNGA that year, but these guys were the mainstays. Travis and Russel rode every leg. Johnny and Norma only missed one; they had an adventure race that day that we couldn't schedule around.



We spun a lap around the race course. There isn't as much climbing as I remember, but all of the climbs are steep. It will definitely be different from the other 6 hour races. So far, as long as I stayed fueled up, I could just keep the momentum going, I never had to just sit back and climb. This one will not be like that. I'll have to sit back and climb, a good bit, on every lap. I will need protein, and more fuel.

After the quick spin, we didn't really feel like just spinning more. We'd have plenty of that next weekend. I suggested the Hickory Nut; a few miles of pavement, an infinitely long gravel road climb up to Trey Gap (on Trey Mountain, the nemesis of my recent TNGA attempt), followed by a long, chunky descent along a "road" to an even longer descent down an abandoned road-turned singletrack, strewn with boulders, typically obscured by ferns.

Daunting. But we were all down. Onward.

For the first few miles, we passed through Unicoi State Park. Most people pronounce it "You-nuh-coy" but I've heard that the Cherokee pronounced it "Uh-nuk-oh-wah". Nobody has any idea what you mean if you pronounce it that way though, so I call it "You-nuh-coy", even though it's wrong :)

Unicoi Lake:



Or unicorn lake as my kids insist. "It's unicorn, daddy. UNI-CORN, not COY"

The first few miles up Trey Mountain flew by. We stopped to regroup once, just around a corner, and as the last rider came around, a car was following him. I thought "hey, I think I recognize that car..." and just then I could make out the driver. It was Andrew from work! Andrew who hiked all over Cane Creek with me back in July. Of all the places in Georgia we could have chosen to go, what are the odds we'd both choose Trey Mountain at the exact same time on the exact same day. Woohoo! He and his girlfriend were heading up to Shoal Creek and then back down to Anna Ruby Falls. Awesome.

We saw only this little waterfall, on the side of the road. Not too much, but neat, I guess.



That, and this rock are the main points of interest on Trey Mountain Road.



I guess there's also the Bison View Lodge. I'm not sure what it is exactly. It appears to have been built recently. They apparently lead horseback rides, and there are a couple of nice houses up there, even a heliport. We saw a helicopter fly in, heard it land and then later heard it take off again. Classy.


Russell had been suffering since we started climbing. At a point, he even considered turning back, but we more or less forced him to continue, with assistance.



On the last leg of the TNGA in 2008, Travis sheared off his rear derailleur, leaving him with only the granny gear. He considered bowing out, but he'd ridden every leg since South Carolina, was less than 30 miles from Alabama, and could not be allowed to quit. When it was steep, he climbed, when it was shallow, we pushed him.

All for one, one for all.

The last mile or so was looooose gravel. The lamest possible riding surface, and especially difficult if you're pushing someone. Quite a struggle, but we made it to Trey Gap.





The initial descent from Trey Gap is technically a road, but I prefer to think of it as a 4WD trail. Chunky, chunky, chunky. I've driven it before, and it's quite a challenge. Boulders, rock slabs, ruts, mud puddles, you name it. You might think it's an environmental hazard, but it's so high up the mountain, the runoff has plenty of time to shed it's sediment before joining any streams. There was only one spot where a stream crossed the road, even after the heavy rain we've had. There, the trail was worn down to solid rock and the water ran clear.

We bombed the descent. Pausing only twice to let some skilled drivers come through from the other direction, and once again because I flatted :/

After a quick climb, we hit the Hickory Nut.



I think technically the Hickory Nut is Old FS690. Ie. FS690 once lead from whatever highway that is that runs through Unicoi Park, up to Trey Mountain Road. But, long ago all but about a mile of it was closed and the old road has become singletrack.

It turned out to be the perfect time of year for the Hickory Nut. The ferns have all died off, exposing the rocks they usually hide, but the fall leaves had not yet built up deeply enough to obscure them again. Perfect. We flew.

But not so fast as to miss the early fall colors.



Gorgeous, and it'll only get better in the coming weeks.

With the Hickory Nut behind us, we looped about a mile back to the cars. Johnny and Norma had to get going. Me, Travis and Russell grabbed some pizza in Helen. A good way to end a good day.

Bowman's Island

Me and the girls ran around in the woods again today.

We checked out the Bowman's Island area south of Richland Creek, hoping to find a trail crossing the creek and connecting to the trails north of there. No luck, but we had a pretty good time anyway.

We parked on Hwy 20, which was actually kind of challenging. There's a little parking spot just to the east of the Chattahoochee River bridge, but it's got a big no-parking sign. Up the road a bit is another little turn-out with more no-parking signs. West of the bridge there's an abandoned shop with no such signs and a bunch of cars were parked there. We joined them.

Crossing the bridge was nervewracking; inches from heavy traffic at highway speeds. That bridge is longer than it looks. The girls were very careful though.

On the other side, we followed an old roadbed...



...around, up to a ridge, across the top and back down. A good bit of it was so old and ran across such flat ground, we kept losing it and finding it again.

After that we headed north and had to negotiate this little creek crossing.





The trail joined an old roadbed and led north for quite a while before becoming pretty badly overgrown. To the right, the hillside must have been an part of an old farm. It was terraced and bordered by and old barbed wire fence.



After a while the overgrowth became lush. Lush. Why so lush? Perhaps the sprinklers had something to do with it.



They were everywhere. Why sprinklers? And more importantly, were we in an unmarked spray sewage irrigation field? Man that would be bad if they went off. The overgrown road joined a clean gravel road, we kept going. Maybe it would lead out to Suwanee Dam road or something. Nope, it led to a golf course. Maybe the sprinklers belong to the golf course. Maybe we were on their property :/

I really don't like being on private property, but I didn't see any signs. Just the same, we turned around and headed back. Oh, there was a sign, just not visible from the direction we were originally going.

When we were back on corp property, we took a break. The vultures must have thought we were tireder than we were. Dozens circled overhead.



We checked out a couple of trails leading away from the overgrown road, some clean, some pretty overgrown. None led north across Richland.

We did find a bunch of green, underripe oranges lying on the ground in a little clearing. I guess the tree above us was an orange tree. It took me a while to figure out what they were, I've got no idea what an orange tree looks like, or an underripe orange for that matter. The juice stained my thumb brown. It's a pretty good stain. I think it's going to be brown for a while.

It's that in-between weather now. Cool in the morning, warm all day, cool in the evening. Sophie was all "Guys, it's sooo hot." Of course, she was wearing a sweater, it was cool when we were riding bikes earlier.



After she took it off, she felt much better.

We headed back and took a side trail down to the river, where we found these awesome rocks.





You could walk most of the way out to the middle of the river. We played there for at least half an hour.

Next, we trekked through beaver country...



...and found more underripe oranges, but nothing else all that interesting.

Crossing the bridge earlier was scary enough. Crossing it going in the same direction as traffic, at dusk was a whole new level. The girls handled their nerves well. We probably won't be doing that again though.

There are a couple of side trails we didn't hit, some ridgelines that might have something interesting up on them, and the whole other side of the river has trails on it too. Good stuff for next time.

Habersham Bank

The girls love riding bikes. They ask me every day. Iz rode 100 laps around the bank. Sophie rode 14. The training wheels slowed her down a bit.

Bowmans Island

I spent all the day with the kids today. Early church service, lunch at Little Azio's, bike riding in the parking lot at a local bank, and some exploring in the Bowman's Island area.

On the east bank, there are some trails in the far northwest corner that we haven't been on yet. To get there by trail you have to go in a big U. It's like going from New York to Chicago through Atlanta. I've been wanting to do some bushwhacking out there. Today was a good opportunity.

We parked at the Island Ford Road trailhead, took the trail a few hundred yards and started heading downhill. Right away I saw a familiar sight. An old collapsed chimney. I think. Maybe.



Not much bushwhacking actually. The woods was pretty much wide open. Not much underbrush to speak of. My plan was to descend along a creek, explore the trails and follow the ridgeline back. Before long we were on the creek, finding cool stuff.

Bone.



I'm not sure what these are. They were set down inside pits, which appeared to be dug to house them. That or they used to sit on flat ground and the hillside has eroded down and filled in around them. They looked kind of like drums, but they were made of flimsy material. I always think moonshine when I see something weird like this, but who knows.



For a while there was plenty of flat to either side of the creek. We made good time there, but eventually it pinched and we had to tiptoe on exposed rocks. The girls were having a good time.



Sophie kept finding these little red bugs everywhere. I didn't see any until she finally pointed them out.



When we reached the trails we were looking for, we took a little break and pressed on. The topo map shows a trail leading down from Pass Road, bending north and leading up a ridgeline back toward Pannell Road. We'd been up the trail to Pass Road. It ends at private property. We took the trail toward Pannell Road. It became overgrown almost immediately, but a little trail led toward the river, past this oddity:



A tombstone? Maybe, but it was all alone, and unmarked. The trail led to an old roadbed, which led down to the river and T'ed into a riverside trail. We explored up and down it for a while and spent some time down at the river itself.









The trail led south to Old Pass Road and north to the Laurel Ridge Trail. The recent rains had ravaged one of the little feeder creeks we crossed, leaving this cool little pool.



At Laurel Ridge, we met a lady with a short, fat Black Lab. The girls are usually a little nervous around dogs they don't know, but not this one. It was walking slow and panting hard doing it. No threat. Very sweet though. We scratched it's head for a while.

On the way back we found this cool tree. 2 trees had grown together and eventually split back apart.



Mission accomplished, time go head back home. We picked up the ridge south of the creek. Again, the woods was wide open. Very little brush. There was this enormous rock pile though.



And somebody was getting artistic out there.



And then we made it into the dumping ground.



Iz named it Betty. Betty the El Camino. The presence of an actual car made me look hard for signs of an old road. I kind-of found one. Turns out it led right where we wanted to go. We lost and found it over and over all the way back to the main trail.

Some highlights...

Rock piles.







Some kind of fruit tree and the fruit it bears. Not sure what these are. They smelled like tiny little apples and had the same consitancy, but I didn't taste them.





There was a whole house full of crap dumped out there along the road.





There was also a dryer, a couple of toolboxes and ten thousand glass jars. Ugh.

Back on the main trail (Old Island Ford Road) we found some weird fruits about the size and color of a black cherry, but growing on a vine, individually, not in a bunch. They looked like grapes on the inside and smelled like them too. No idea. Maybe some kind of weird grape.

Right by the car I found this persimmon tree.



Finally, one I can identify, but all of the fruits were either underripe or rotten. Oh well, there's a persimmon tree by my house and one behind the dumpster at my office. I'm not hurting for persimmons.

When we left the house, the girls didn't want to go, but we had a great time. No dead legs, no rain, no injuries. Just fun. I felt like a kid, playing in the woods. I hope we have more days like today.

Tooni Mountain (Again)

The weatherman said it would rain all week, but it did not. It was sunny every day, except today. Today it stormed non-stop.

I had so much fun running around on Tooni Mountain last week, why not go for a repeat?

The drive in was rainy and foggy...



...but Laurel Creek and the Toccoa weren't so high today.

Last week I found a couple of old roadbeds, with a million spurs left and right. Some were overgrown, but some were clearly travelled on a regular basis. Today I planned on exploring as many of them as I could.

Right off the bat I made some discoveries. Somebody rolled up a couple of old fences and dumped them, some time ago. One was partially unrolled across the trail and I got all tripped up in it. The fence was both square mesh and barbed wire. I was lucky I didn't get cut.



I found this old stovepipe too. At least I think it's a stovepipe. Maybe from a still?



I walked on ten billion trails. All old roadbeds, in various stages of being reclaimed. Some were clean, some were so overgrown all I could do was parallel them in the open woods.

It rained all day, sometimes torrentially. Last week my jacket performed poorly. I was far more comfortable just getting wet. This week I'd run by Dick's sporting goods on the way out of town and grabbed a couple of ponchos. One was a lightweight emergency poncho, the other was a Dry Ducks poncho. I tried on the Dry Ducks at the trailhead. While lightweight, it was ungainly. I can imagine using it on a wide open trail, but not on the kind of stuff I push through. The emergency poncho was much less restrictive, so I used it all day. I imagine it could keep you dry if you huddle near the ground and don't move, but not while hiking. Rain trickled in steadily and I was soaked almost immediately. I kept it on though. I'd put it on over my pack, hoping it would at least keep that dry. It did keep it from getting completely waterlogged, but I wouldn't call it dry. I'm going to try a trash compactor bag inside my pack next time. I think if it's warm outside, I'm just going to let myself get soaked. If it's cold, my jacket and pants are fine because I don't get soaked with sweat. But, I still don't have a good plan for when it's like 50 degrees outside.

But I digress...

The woods were dark and wet, but scenic.



At one very confusing intersection of trails I found this cable, half buried under deadfall. I've seen several of these, thrown to the side of old roads. Maybe back when the trails were passable roads, people had homes or hunting camps there and strung these up across the trail like a gate. Or maybe they're somehow associated with logging. Who knows.



I saw very little wildlife today. There was this turtle though...



...and I saw a little tan mouse, who ran up a rhododendron branch and "hid" just above me. I tried super hard to take a photo of him, but I use my iPhone to take pics, and even though I keep it in an Otter Box, a tiny bit of water does get in sometimes, preventing the touch screen from working reliably. When I finally got it working, the mouse was gone.

This was on one of the last trails of the day, which was the most difficult rhodo-whack ever. I couldn't even parallel the trail, the entire hillside was covered. The trail ended in the most peculiar way. Usually old bench-cuts end with a little pile of dirt where the bulldozer just stopped and backed up. Sometimes, if the hillside flattens, they disappear into the flatness. Sometimes they turn directly up or downhill and disappear into the fall line, if it's shallow. This one turned downhill along a very steep, rocky fall line and proceeded for about 10 feet. Track-marks were clearly visible, but disappeared abruptly. I studied the area for quite a while. There was literally zero evidence of the trail beyond that point and the terrain was not the kind I've ever seen a trail disappear into. I suspect the bulldozer driver decided it was too steep and rocky and backed on up. But I half-imagined the dozer turning downhill, losing traction and tumbling into oblivion. Who knows. Unique though.

Nearby, I heard the sound of rushing water. At first I thought it was rain, but it wasn't rain.



Not exactly a waterfall, but close. I imagine if it had rained less today, it wouldn't have been worth a second look.

On the way back to my car I saw a dozen white tailed deer. They're everywhere right now, but in a couple of weeks they better watch out.