Jasus Creek

I have this old map of the Upper Chattahoochee from 1980 that shows a few features that aren't shown on modern maps. One of these features is a trail running along, or in the vicinity of Trail Ridge. With a name like Trail Ridge, one would expect there to be such a trail, and over the years, I've seen indications that there might be such a thing.

FS44B forms the "Jasus Creek Loop", which heads north from FS44, meanders back and forth along Trail Ridge, crosses Jasus Creek way up high and then meanders back down along some unnamed ridge before teeing back into FS44 not too far from where it began. This road is almost always closed, it's a tough climb on a bike, and, being a road, not much fun to hike. As such, I haven't been up that way too often.

But! This past weekend, I did go up that way, and it turned out to be one of the best hikes I've had in a while.

The drive up was somewhat interesting. I made good time until I got into Helen. Cars weren't backed up all the way to Sautee, so I figured it might be possible to drive through town instead of around it. Turned out that I was sort-of right about that, but not entirely. The Shriners were in town, getting ready for a parade. There were motorcycles everywhere, and those tiny little cars that they drive, and people lined up all over the place in lawn chairs, waiting for the festivities to begin. Said festivities had not yet begun, but traffic was still backed up a bit with all the staging and with everybody finding a place to park and get a good seat.

It was a bit hotter than it's been, low 90's, an there were fewer people up in the woods than usual. I saw a few people fishing, but nobody camping. I don't think I saw another car, moving at least, all the way up FS44.

I parked just up the road from the Jasus Creek Loop, gathered my things together, and got moving.

The initial climb was tough and steep, and there was fresh gravel down too. As slow going as it was, I was glad I wasn't on the bike, having to wrestle that gravel.

Trail Ridge and the next one to the east have really taken a beating over the past few years. Between tornadoes, logging, and prescribed burns, there are a lot fewer tall trees and the brush is super, super dense.

The upside of all of that though, is spectacular views.

That's Mount Yonah, to the south. From other spots along the road, there are good views of the Blue Ridge and Locust Log Ridge. And you don't just get a glimpse here and there, you can see them for a while.

After climbing up to the ridge, the road bounced back and forth over it. At each gap, I searched for indications of a trail. I mean, the ridge is named "Trail Ridge" right? One would expect there to be a trail, on the ridge, and the map seems to show that too. But, the map was old and hand-drawn. It was pretty accurate for being old and hand-drawn, but not accurate enough to really pinpoint the location of the trail.

At each gap though, I did find indications that people had gone that way before. If I didn't immediately run into a wall of saplings, then at the first downed tree the trail would start to get cold, and after the third, it was gone. If could see the ground, I might be able to discern an indention, but in the middle of the summer there was just no hope of that. Maybe in winter. Or maybe not at all. Honestly, I wasn't confident that what I kept finding even added up to a contiguous trail at all.

While slightly discouraging, another, much more discouraging thing, was the bugs. Good god. The bugs. Everywhere. Not mosquitoes, but little buzzing gnats, buzzing around my ears to no end. I did all kinds of experiments to try to keep them away though, and here's what I discovered...

My hair isn't long enough to pull down out of my hat and cover my ears. Covering ones ears tightly makes it difficult to walk. Covering ones ears loosely does nothing. Somehow, the bugs still know they are there and are only very slightly less annoying. Strangely enough, putting your hands in front of your ears, perpendicular to them, hides your ears entirely. For some reason, bugs can no longer find them. But, then they just go for your eyes. Waving ones hat over one shoulder and map over the other works well, but you have to do it constantly. Neither poplar, various oaks, nor sassafras seem to be natural bug repellents, even if shredded up, but if you wave a sprig full of leaves, of any of those, like a dorky little fan, over each shoulder, constantly, it's effective, and less of a pain than waving the hat/map combination. I walked around for most of the rest of the day, carrying these two little sprigs of poplar, and waving them over my shoulders whenever the bugs would come back. I can only imagine how ridiculous I looked.

There was one good thing though... The ridge is named Trail Ridge, but it could just as easily be named Blueberry Ridge.

It was thick with them. I ate like 5 or 6 handfulls and eventually just got tired of eating them. There were plenty more. Plenty more.

Another good, or at least interesting thing: lizards! Dozens and dozens of lizards. They were all along the margins of the road, sunning themselves I guess, and they'd scurry off if I got within 5 feet. One didn't scurry too far though, just hid under a tuft of grass. When I lifted the tuft with my foot, it ran off, right across my other foot. Ha!

Another good thing, or maybe dubiously good thing... That whole area is bear country. Big time. And I was starting to see signs to that effect.

Yeah! Someone's been marking that tree for a while. I like how the claw marks are clearly visible coming down from the top.

Shred.

That tree was just north of a wildlife planting. From the planting, I got some good views of Locust Log Ridge.

At least I think that's what that is. Definitely some part of the Hickorynut Lead.

Back on the road, there was more bear sign.

A small print...

And larger prints...

But bears weren't the only notable thing up there.

There were puddles full of frog eggs.

I wasn't sure what those were at first, actually. At first I thought it was one of those strings that you get if you start pulling on the corner of a piece of carpet. I had to look close to see the individual eggs.

There were really old campsites here and there too. The fire rings were scattered, and all the trash was from the 80's.

I guess it's been a while since that road's been open for long enough for people to camp off of it.

I did find a fairly new looking firebreak way up at the top of the loop, and walking along it, saw a mother bear and three cubs about 200 yards away from me. They'd seen me first though, and I only saw them after they'd started running away.

The woods was ferny and beautiful at the higher elevations.

The road itself was fairly scenic too.

Where the road crossed the upper prongs of Jasus Creek, I found a trail leading up along, between, and across them, to a wildlife planting.

There were millions of little white flowers growing everywhere. Sophie's favorite flowers. I wish she could have seen it. She could have picked all that she could carry and wouldn't have made a dent in them.

The road to the planting led over from FS44C.

Near the intersection, my brother called me. I was surprised to find that I had service, but apparently I did. He'd been in Florida all week, he was about to go ride, and he wanted to see if I was around. Unfortunately I was decidedly, not around, but we made plans for next weekend. Hopefully those will work out and I'll have something else to write about next Monday too.

While kind-of kneeling there, talking to him, a coyote crossed the road in front of me, and headed uphill on 44C. It didn't even glance in my direction. I tried to get a picture of it, but dangit, I wasn't quick enough.

Pretty good though. 4 bear, a coyote, frog eggs and a bunch of lizards. Kind of made up for not having seen any other wildlife yet this year.

At that point, I was officially nowhere near where I needed to be. I was about as far from the truck as possible, and taking 44C back to it would definitely be the long way around. I'd so far avoided large-scale, cross-country bushwhacking, but it looked like a bit of that might be in my future. The last time I was up there though, I'd made note of the road leading to the wildlife planting, and another trail adjacent to it. Both were marked on my map. The coyote seemed to have come from the direction of that trail. It looked like it might lead at least sort-of over in the direction I wanted to go... Yes. It did. It was another firebreak, and it led directly back to 44B. Score.

So I was now back a the top of the Jasus Creek Loop, closer than before, but still darn far from the truck. Should I continue around the loop? Backtrack?

No. Option C.

Option C was to bushwhack along Jasus Creek itself and cut back up over the ridge if that turned out to be convenient at some point.

At first it was really easy going. There were little game trails here and there that were pretty easy to follow. Now and again I'd end up on a bench for a while too, but it was never clear whether it was man made or natural.

Eventually the backslope got really steep and I had to climb and climb just to give myself room to recover in case I slipped. Then it got to be hands and feet. Hands and feet. And finally, I could see ahead of me, the densest tangle of rhododendron and magnolia known to man. Or, maybe unknown to man. It seemed unlikely that man, in general, had been in the vicinity for a long time. Both sides of the creek were choked with it, all the way up the ridge, and the backslope wasn't any shallower.

Down at the creek, there were a series of small cascades.

The creek itself was choked too. It wouldn't have been any easier walking down it than walking through the woods to either side.

Might be time to try to get back up over the ridge.

I climbed up through the rhododendron, emerged, and found myself on an old logging skid, or maybe an old firebreak. It appeared to end a few feet from where I'd found it. In the other direction, it must lead to something.

All right!

But, first things first. I was getting hungry, and I had both a Tabasco Slim Jim and Whatchamacalit in my pack. Mmmm, hmmm. Lunch time.

It's one of my favorite things... Sitting on a rock, in the middle of the woods, having a snack. Sure, yes, there are plenty of better things, but that one is pretty good.

The skid led to an old road. The old road had a distinct trail on it. In fact, it looked about like the Hickory Nut, only not as steep. There was about the same amount of deadfall, same amount of rock, same amount of overgrowth. It meandered along below Trail Ridge, on the east side, just like 44B did on the west. I followed it south. There were two short overgrown spots where trees had fallen and exposed the trail to the sun, but after pushing through each of them, the trail was as clear as it had been on the other side.

I made great time, but I kept expecting the trail to end abruptly at some point. I'd hiked all the way up 44B and hadn't seen it tee in anywhere. After a while, though I had to be getting close to 44B, I could see that I was approaching a gap, and I was starting to see good evidence of the burns. Just as I'd given up on the idea that the road was going to end, it did, abruptly, as if the bulldozer had stopped right there. I looked back though, and there was a really, really well worn trail, leading right up to that spot. The heck?

After poking around for a few minutes, it started to seem like there'd been a landslide. It looked like some trees had fallen and they'd been the only thing holding the ground in place above the road. I carry my GPS to map stuff, but I rarely use it to see where I am. In fact, I don't even have a topo background loaded into it. I took a look though, and at the zoom level that it was set to, it looked like I was on 44B. I was close, less than 50 feet away, but ahead of me there were downed trees and the landslide they'd caused, all exposed to the sun, covered with new brush, and especially, with thorn bushes. There was no good way to get below it. Above it was thick with the same kind of brush. I ended up spending about 10 minutes just picking through it, one step at a time. On the other side, the road was right there. I even recognized where I was. I'd seen that spur on the way out but from the other side, it just looked like maybe the guy building the road had started going that way and changed his mind.

And it was then that it occurred to me. Maybe that road was the trail on the map. It roughly fit. All day, I'd been looking for a trail ON the ridge, but maybe that's not what the map intended. Maybe I'd finally just stumbled upon it, accidentally.

I'd run into it in the middle too. It keeps going the other way. Hmm. I guess I'll have to go back and see where it goes some day.

On the way out I saw tons of turkey prints in the sand.

My right knee was bothering me too. It used to do that sometimes. I'd all but forgotten about it. I guess I've got roadie knees. Until a few months ago, I'd been on the road bike, almost exclusively, for like a year. I've managed to ditch the roadie legs, but not the knees, it would seem. More miles! I've got a fever, and the only cure is more miles!

Back in Helen, I ate some good Chile Colorado at La Cabana. Aside from myself and a few others, the restaurant was filled with a single group of people. They had pushed about 6 tables together, and more of their group was sitting at satellite tables. A group that big is usually super, super loud, especially if they're drinking. Not these guys. They were all deaf. The restaurant was amazingly quiet, quiet enough that you could hear them signing. I could hear people talking outside. It was surreal.

Aside from getting kind of sleepy and grabbing a Mellow Yellow in Dawsonville, the drive home was as uneventful as the drive up.

Heck of a day though. Miles and miles, blueberries, lizards, bears, a coyote, and a lost trail! Yeah-heah!!! That's why I do it. That, right there.

Cobb County Paved Trails

"Tell your girlfriend black women was looking at your booty!"

Yeah! It was that kind of ride!

This past Tuesday I got out on the road for a few hours after work. I don't usually have much to say about a ride like that, but this one was a little different.

First off, my road bike was back from the shop and I'm not sure what magic Glen did to it, but it's never been quieter and never felt more solid. No chain noise. Every gear seemed to drop in perfectly... I left it with him to get the pedals rebuilt, and when I got it back it was like the whole drivetrain had been upgraded.

What's the most appropriate thing to do with a bike in such perfect working order? Ride directly into a storm, of course.

That's what I ended up doing.

The weather looked good from my house, but the further east I went, the worse and worse it got.

I was checking-out/mapping some of the various paved trails that I've seen over the past 15 years living in Atlanta. There's a trail leading from the Silver Comet over toward the mall, and one on Spring Road, and two popped up recently over where 75 crosses 575... Where do they all go?

Well, the one goes over to the mall. Cumberland Connector, it's apparently called.

Then, there are several that are just sidewalks with a badge declaring them to be trails. I don't mean extra wide sidewalks. I mean, literally just the original sidewalk that was built when the road was built and then someone came back later and declared it a trail. The Interstate North "Trail" and Windy Ridge "Trail" are good examples.

The "trail" along Cumberland Drive (I think) is another example, but it does feature an nice little point of interest: an urban waterfall.

Yeah! Waterfalls are few and far between in the metro ATL. I'll take what I can get and I declare that to be an urban waterfall.

The trail that popped up over by the interstate is apparently called the Bob Callan - Rottenwood Creek trail.

It parallels Rottenwood Creek and part of it uses an old bridge that was once part of the Interstate North Parkway. I remember driving on it back in the early 2000's. Now you can stand there and get a decent view of the creek.

Some guy was actually fly fishing in the creek, under the 285 bridge.

Heading back in the direction of home, it started raining a bit. I passed over 75, headed towards where they're building the new Braves Stadium...

...and then started getting hammered by rain. It was a warm day, and the rain wasn't cold, but I just couldn't see anything. It eventually occurred to me to take off my glasses. It always takes me a minute to remember that I'm wearing glasses.

I stood there for about 5 minutes on the corner of Windy Ridge and South Cobb, waiting for the light to change, soaked to the bone, watching the wind blow the rain around, happy to be out in it. I got some funny looks but I'll tell you, tolerance is freedom. It turns being stuck in the rain into enjoying the rain.

The best part was the next intersection though, at Spring Road. Miraculously, the rain had gone from a downpour to a sprinkle in those few blocks, and again, I was waiting for the light, looking around. A window rolls down in the car behind me, to the left...

"It's working for you! Mmm, hmm."

Ha! That made me smile. Then the light changed and we all started moving.

"Tell your girlfriend that black women was looking at your booty!"

Ha ha! That made me smile even bigger and laugh. Kind of made my day, actually... the idea that my booty could make people so happy.

Then the duality set in. So, does that count as sexual harassment? Should I manually override the flattery and humor that I was feeling, and force myself to be offended in deference to other victims of sexual harassment? Should I even declare myself a victim? I've felt harassed before, but that exchange was different. Why?

I guess, the big difference is that I didn't feel threatened. It also doesn't happen often enough to be a nuisance. I guess I also don't care if people are generally enjoying my booty. Some people don't like the idea that people are looking at them at all. Not me. The outdoor adventurer is poorly served by modesty. My booty is for everyone. "Black girls, white girls, skinny girls, fat girls, tall girls, small girls, I'm calling all girls..." And guys. Guys too. I'm sure guys are looking at my booty. That's fine. Have at it. Just keep the comments friendly, and the frequency low, and I'm good.

Blankets Creek and Old Rope Mill

I called up Mark B yesterday, and our conversation went kind of like this:

"Yo Mark, want to ride tomorrow?"

"Yeah... I'm going to Conyers, that's all I have time to do."

"Awww"

"You want to do something long, don't you."

"Yeah. Well, maybe next week or something."

"Yeah, I don't have a lot of time this weekend. Cool. Talk to you later."

Then he called me back literally less than a minute later . During that minute, Kaylee had apparently encouraged him to go ride with me and they managed to coordinate the details of said ride. Woohoo Kaylee!

So I met him at Blankets Creek at 9AM the next morning. Since Mark's middle name is Punctuality, he was a little early. But! Since I know that Mark's middle name is Punctuality, I was even earlier, and managed to get dressed, and get my bike ready, and spin a lap around the lot before he got there. Ha! Maybe I should change my middle name to Punctuality too.

Turned out that he had a buddy Jim that was going to meet us, but Jim had just left Atlanta like 10 minutes earlier, so he'd be a while. Our loose plan was to ride Blankets, take the road over to Rope Mill, ride Rope Mill, and ride back, abbreviating the route as necessary to make it fit in the time we had available. Jim would be a while though, so Mark figured we could spin a lap around the Dwelling Loop and meet him directly after.

And so we did.

But! There is an additional detail worth mentioning. There was a guy in the lot that had parked across from me that was waiting for someone else too. That someone-else never showed up, and he and Mark had gotten to talking. Mark was like "We're going to do a lap around Dwelling, feel free to tag along..." And so there were three of us.

At first glance, the guy didn't seem to be an ideal riding partner. He'd only been riding for about a year, and judging from his gear, he seemed to still be figuring out his gear. I didn't expect him to be all that fast, but I was wrong there. Mark wasn't killing it, but he wasn't going intentionally slowly, and whenever we'd look back, the guy was still back there. Not right on us, but never really falling off. For what it's worth, I was really impressed.

When we got back to the lot, Glen Slater was sitting there on the tailgate of somebody's truck. I'd just seen him the day before. He'd been getting my old and busted road bike working again and I'd picked it up from his shop (Pro Bike Repair). "Long time no see Davey." He calls me Davey and my brother Johnnie. He's done that for like 12 years. I dig it. It's kind of endearing actually.

Anyway, he was riding there with a guy that Mark knows. Justin, I think. I haven't ridden with him lately, but John says Glen is super, super fast these days. If I know Glen, they only rode for an hour then went home, but probably averaged like 17mph or something crazy like that.

We were looking for Jim. Turned out he'd ridden out to the Dwelling trail head and was waiting for us. 5 minutes later we were all together though and headed over to Rope Mill.

We all wanted to ride both systems, and we figured the best chance of doing that was to head over, ride there, and then see what we could fit in at Blankets on the back end. Sounded like a good idea.

It was at that point though, that I made an error in judgement that would cost me later. I wasn't thinking ahead. Or, I was, but not correctly. I've recovered my technical skills, I've recovered a lot of my strength and endurance, but some of my more esoteric Adventure skills are still rusty, it would seem...

At any rate, we headed over to Rope Mill. The guy that rode with us earlier tagged along again too. Turned out his name was Mike. So, I'll call him Mike from now on. I think he thought we were going to drive over, because he seemed surprised when we just started riding out of the lot. Again, he lagged back a little, but never really far. Again, we weren't killing it, but we weren't taking it easy for his sake either. I was, again, impressed.

So, the route from Blankets to Rope Mill consists of a jaunt along Sixes Road, a right on Holly Springs Road, and then a right again at the Little River, picking up a trail at the back of the Rope Mill property that runs along the river, following some drainage lines and eventually leads past the ruins of the old mill and tees into the main trail system.

That trail is typically super dry and sandy, and the sand pits rival those found in Central Florida, but today it was flooded and the challenge was just finding a dry line. This involved shouldering the bike, leaping across runoff streams, climbing up over raised concrete manholes, and other non-traditional trail negotiation tactics.

There's this one little spot that's a bit of a maze, me and Jim got just a little bit too far ahead, and Mark and Mike got separated from us for a few minutes. We actually had to call to them so they could find us.

I'd kind of wanted to cross the river on the trestle rock, but with all the rain we've gotten lately, the rocks were under water, so we pressed on past the mill ruins and picked up the main trail there.

Since the last time I'd ridden there, Sorba Woodstock had built 5 miles of new trail on the north side of the river. I'd read about plans for that a few years back. It was tentatively named "the fierce trail" back then. Turns out though, they named that group of trails "The Mill" and each individual trail was named after some part of a mill: Raceway, Powerhouse, Turbine, and Moore's Pass. Actually, I don't think that last one is part of a mill.

Since we were on that side already, we hit the new trails first.

Oh, man, we had the greatest time!

Those trails are super fast, and super fun, and flow really well, and there are jumps and drops, and rock gardens, and all manner of obstacles littered about. They all have alternate lines too, so you don't have to rip hardcore unless you're into it, but most of the jumps are easy. They're actually doubles, but after manualling the first two, I just got to trusting that I could clear them and started doing that.

Oh, man! So fun!

I can't believe I didn't know about those trails.

And! That guy Mike hung on the entire time! He wasn't only one turn back at the end of the loop. Ha! Nice job Mike.

He did bail after that loop though. I'm not sure he had 10 more miles of trail and 5 more road miles in him, but still. I was super impressed.

We headed over to the Explorer trails and stopped under the 575 bridge (in the shade) for a snack.

I was suddenly getting very hungry. This is the error in judgement that I'd made earlier, finally coming around. I had food in my truck. I'd planned on riding all of Blankets, grabbing the food out of my truck on the way to Rope Mill, eating some on the way over, and saving the rest for later. Instead, I was thinking something like "Rope Mill is about the same number of miles as Blankets, so I won't need food until I get back." But that logic is idiotic. I'd already ridden 1/3rd of Blankets, and there's still the road back and forth between the two systems! I'd consciously thought about what to do and consciously decided to do the most foolish thing. Rusty, rusty, rusty.

I realized I needed to mitigate the impending suffering though, so Mark gave me some kind of nut-and-chocolate bar that was really good, and Jim gave me a piece of a granola bar. It quelled my hunger, but I was short on calories, and I knew it would cost me eventually. I just hoped I could get back to Blankets before it did.

We shredded the Explorer trails, headed up to Avalanche, which had received a significant entrance/exit reroute since I was last there, and shredded the Avalanche trails too.

It was hot back up in there though. Man. Really hot. Queasy-stomach hot. "Pyramid building weather." I've been riding in the late afternoons for the past few weeks. I need to get more mid-day miles in.

Also, for the past few weeks, I've been struggling to get my technical skills back. To that end, I've been ripping Allatoona Creek as often as possible. A significant deterrent though, has been my tires. They were just seriously, seriously old and worn out. I like to get every mile out of my equipment, but those old tires were taking that principle pretty far. To illustrate this point, I'd picked up new tires last Wednesday, and the old ones had been so worn out, that the new ones felt significantly heavier in comparison. I'd put in a big loop at Allatoona Friday though, and felt like I'd both gotten used to my new tires, and recovered most, if not all, of my cornering and general flow back. One of the reasons I wanted to do the Blankets/Rope-Mill loop was to see if that was really the case, or if I'd just gotten to know Allatoona really well.

I'd talked to Mark about that earlier, and about 2/3rds of the way around Avalanche, he was like "You don't seem to have lost your mojo, I'm not sure what you were worried about..." Yeah, it'd been a good day. I was inclined to agree. And then I began to crater, not 2 minutes later. There's no shortage of climbing on Avalanche, and I was starting to feel how low I was on calories.

It was bad.

Fortunately we were getting near the end of that loop, and I didn't fall terribly far back. Actually, I'd dropped my chain over the outside of my big ring too, and fixing that put me further back than anything else.

Fortunately again, the ride out to the road was mostly flat, involved decoding a bit of a maze, and later, picking tricky lines through wide, flooded trail. None of us were moving too fast.

We were all out of water at the road though, so we stopped at the Texaco to tank up. I'd actually done OK on hydration all day. Wasn't behind on that. Just on food.

I fell back on the last climb up to Blankets though, and only caught up because the other guys had to wait on traffic to cross the road.

But it wasn't over!

Jim had to get home, so he took off. I was spent and I wanted to get going too. Mark wanted to as well, but after checking the distance, we were like 3/10ths of a mile short of 30 miles, so he decided to spin a lap around Mosquito Flats. Ok, sounded like a good idea to me too. I ate some of the food I'd left in my truck. It was hot and melty, and didn't taste good, but I figured it would help.

We rode Mosquito Flats and Mosquito Bite, and around the start of Van Michaels, I felt like I could do it. Mark indicated that it was a terrible idea and headed home. It was a terrible idea. It was a crawl. I caught up to the bike patrol guy in some downhill section, but he pulled away from me on the next climb, while intentionally going slow. A lady with a bike with a kickstand was stopped on the side of the trail, got going right as I passed her, and started to catch me on the next climb. Oh, man, it was bad.

When I made it out, I even called Mark on the way home to tell him that he'd made the right decision.

I'm guessing though, that if I'd thought a little harder about eating, things would have been a lot different. I'll have to do that next time.

Live and learn. Again.

Upper Chattahoochee

Yep, still exploring the Upper Chattahoochee. My map had a half dozen little dotted lines running from FS44 off into the woods, and this past Saturday seemed like a good day to find out where they go.

Sadly, few of them went anywhere interesting, but there is still a bit of a story to tell...

I drove up to Unicoi Gap and descended 44. I'd park at each little side trail, go walking off down it, come back, and repeat, over and over, all day.

The first trail I hit was some little trail along some little unnamed feeder of Wilks Creek, not even a blue line on the map. It was overgrown from the start and based on the trash, it appeared that people camped across the street like to use it as a bathroom. The trail started as a little bench cut, but after crossing the creek, there's a bunch of deadfall, and after that it's clear that nobody goes that way any more.

There was a bunch of this weird fungus growing all over up there...

...but other than that, nothing else all that interesting up that way.

The next little side trail wasn't any more interesting. It started off wide open, but I think people still just camp there regularly. A trail continued, but it was choked with deadfall. According to the old topo quads, there was a food plot back up in there at some point, but it's long, long gone today.

The third trail was, finally, somewhat interesting. It dove down to the Chattahoochee, crossed it, crossed Wilks Creek, and ascended in the general direction of FS178.

Down by the river it looked like people still camp sometimes. There was some modern-ish looking trash down there, but it seemed like most of the traffic that campsite gets was pretty old. There was a corroded old 55 gallon drum nearby with what looked like garbage spanning 20 years or more spilling out of it.

The most interesting thing though... Somebody had lugged this big chunk of metal down there, I guess to grill with.

I couldn't identify it. What's that from?

I guess it makes a good grill.

Further down the trail, at the next creek crossing, there were remnants of an old bridge.

Boards and boards, some still nailed together. Big square nails.

Gnarly.

The trail was punctuated. After each tangle of deadfall, it was noticeably more overgrown. I guess people just got less and less motivated to keep following it over the years.

For a while, I could hear loud cascading falls to the right, but the woods was so dense, there was no way to see anything. The trail finally crossed the creek up near this tiny little 4 foot cascade.

But that was the best view I could get of what sounded like it must be an impressive falls.

I followed the trail as far as I could. It eventually appeared to dead-end into another one. I wasn't 100% sure where I was though. The terrain was fairly complex, the woods was dense, and I couldn't see any landmarks. Turned out later, when I got home, and looked at my GPS data on a map, that I was where I thought I was, but I wasn't certain at the time. It also turned out, that the trail I was on is actually shown on this old map from 1980 (or is that 1960? I can barely read it) and if I'd kept going, it would have teed into 178 near Horse Bone Gap. Dangit. Guess I'll have to get back up there and connect the dots someday.

On the way back, I did some rock hopping along the Chattahoochee itself to try and find where that creek with all the cascades tees in to it. I found it, but from the bottom it looked almost exactly like it had up at the top. The backslope was basically a cliff too. There was no easy way up. If there's a decent falls back up in there, it's possible that nobody has ever seen it.

The river itself was pretty interesting at the confluence there, though. There was a natural pool that turned out to be about waist deep. The water was cold though, and the air down there couldn't have even been 80 degrees. Rivers are great when it's super hot. Not so nice when it's cool.

Next stop, Jasus Creek. For years and years, I'd seen a gated road that appeared to parallel the creek. Old maps show it too. Turns out, it goes right where the maps say. Right up to a food plot.

The road is beautiful. I'm sure it's less spectacular in winter, but it was beautiful yesterday.

Seems wrong to call it a road, even. It's singletrack on a roadbed. Doesn't look like it gets much traffic.

Of course, I found a balloon.

Or what was left of one, at least.

Above the food plot, the road became braided and overgrown and crossed the creek over and over. If it emerges from the creek somewhere, it's not clear where, and at the time, I wasn't sufficiently motivated to keep pushing through the rhododendron.

Instead, I just got up on the backslope and headed back downstream. The cove itself was as scenic as the road had been earlier.

As was the creek itself.

It's easy to see why it's such a popular place to camp.

There were fishing trails up and down the creek too. One approached the same food plot that the road had led to, but didn't seem to go any further.

Hmmm... It seemed that I'd explored the area sufficiently well.

I moved on.

My last stop was down at the intersection of 174 and 44. There was a scramble along the east side of the river and two old logging roads. The scramble was kind-of fun, actually. The roads, less so.

The first just paralleled the river. It seemed to get a bit of traffic too, as it was pretty wide open for a while, and most of it was carpeted with mountain laurel.

Eventually though, after crossing a little feeder, I encountered the tallest tangle of downed trees I've ever tried to climb over, in my life. At the highest point, I was probably 8 feet off of the ground. After climbing down from the highest trunk to the next highest, I took one step and bam! Ate it. It would seem that my that-looks-slippery skills are not yet back up to par. Fortunately, several amazing things happened. I landed on my back, on the same log that I'd slipped on, and somehow, managed to remain on that log, and not fall any further into the tangle below. I also managed to keep from hitting my head. And, most amazingly, at the time, I had my iPhone, GPS, and map, all three, in my right hand, and didn't drop any of them. That is important to note for later.

Ok. So, shaking that off, I much more carefully climbed down off of the pile and pushed on. It seemed that I was alone in pushing on though. Nobody had come that way in a very long time and before long I gave up even trying to keep going.

On the way back, I opted for the under-rather-than-over route through the tangle, and it worked out a lot better.

The last trail of the day ascended up to Hargret Ridge and ran along it for a little while. It's flat up there, and it's hard to follow an old road across flat terrain. There's no bench cut to look for, just old tracks. I'd go for a while without seeing anything, and right when I'd figure I was just following a game trail, I'd find two clear, linear impressions again, usually leading directly into another laurel thicket.

It was getting late. I was thinking about calling it a day, and at that point, I realized that my iPhone wasn't in my hand. Oooh. I'd thought it was. I checked my pack. Nope. Checked again. Nope again. Maybe I'd left it in my truck. This has only happened once before, and that time I had left it in my truck. I hoped I had again. For all I know, I'd dropped it randomly pushing through some bit of brush though. On the way back, I looked hard. And, as it turned out, I had one thing going for me in my search. I keep the phone in a Lifeproof case, and I'd recently replaced my old worn out black case with a new purple one. The purple one was gaudy and thus cheap, but being purple, it was also a different color than anything else in the woods. A black phone might go unnoticed, but a purple one was much less likely to.

No luck on the trail though. I checked the truck too. No luck there either. I could imagine my phone, lying there in the woods like all those balloons and beer cans I've found, but safe in it's case, good as new, until some explorer from the distant future randomly runs across it.

About that time, it occurred to me that I might have dropped it when I fell earlier, and just not noticed that it was missing while I was shaking off the hit. That seemed to be the most likely scenario. I still had time to get back to that location before dark too, so I took off up the trail. Not 100 yards later, I found it, lying in the middle of the most wide open section of the whole trail. Nothing challenging there. No idea how I managed to drop it there, nor how I managed to not notice that I had.

Ahh, the relief though! The relief!

Time to call it a day.

I grabbed a chicken parm sandwich at the Nacoochee Tavern. Some guys were ziplining by as I returned to my car. The drive home was definitively peaceful. This time of year, there's this blue haze everywhere right after the sun goes down. Every window is a dim yellow glow. Sometimes the fields are foggy and sometimes there are fireflies. I was tired and a little beaten up. My stomach was full. It was easy to relax...

The perfect way to end the day.

Upper Chattahoochee

"My wanderlust knows no satiety" is how I described my state of mind on Clark's voicemail. I'd hoped that his had grown a little dissatisfied as well, and perhaps it had, but he proved to be difficult to get a hold of as this past Sunday approached. We both have busy schedules and it's difficult to coordinate sometimes. He did end up calling me back, as it turned out, but I didn't get the message because I was in the middle of the woods at the time.

"The middle of the woods" being the Mark Trail Wilderness between FS44 and the Blue Ridge.

I drove up there Sunday afternoon and got on the trail around 1:30 or so. Just getting there was its own Adventure though. Being the Memorial Day weekend, cars were backed up for miles north and south of Helen. As I saw the line of cars, I spun back to a gas station to hit the restroom, grab some snacks, and fuel up, only to find that they were out of gas except for premium. Fortunately they weren't out of food, and their bathroom was in good shape. To get where I was going though, I had to take Asbestos road and Alt 75 around Helen, and to fuel up, I had to hit the gas station north of town in Robbinsville, which was as busy as I've ever seen it. But! Then, finally I was able to get on the trail.

"The trail" being the Upper Wilks Creek Trail. That's not an actual trail name. I named it that. Clark and I started exploring it the last time we were up that way, but gave up as it merged with a nearby creek and became this soggy mess.

I pushed through that this time though, only to eventually find the actual end of the trail, for real, not much further up. Turns out we weren't missing much by having turned back where we did.

When the trail petered out, I kept going uphill. Old FS44F was up there somewhere. Of that I was certain. The hillside did get pretty steep before I found it, but fortunately I've shed some of my winter pork and it wasn't like last time where I had to walk 20 feet, rest, walk 20 more, rest... I was able to keep moving the whole time, albeit slowly.

Up on 44F, the gall wasps appeared to have been having their way with the local foliage.

There were other insects flying around up there too. I saw a pair of some weird bee-looking things (but not gall wasps) mating - hooked together, one flying backwards, like love bugs. I've never actually seen that, except with love bugs. Those were the only interesting insects. The rest of them just kept landing on me and crawling around.

The foliage itself was somewhat interesting too.

Lots of Chestnut...

...and Striped Maple...

...and tickweed...

(just what I all it, I'm sure it has a real name)

...and Wild Azaleas!...

...and May Apple...

...and the Trilliums that me and Clark saw last time are really getting big now.

The backslope was covered in ferns. Ferns forever. Nothing but ferns. As far as the eye could see.

As interesting as all that was, I had another objective being up there. Last time we were up there, me and Clark had followed the Naked Mountain Branch Trail as far as it seemed to go. But then, later, when I compared the GPS data to the old low-res USGS quads, the route we'd taken didn't come close to matching the map, above the waterfalls. There'd been a spur that we hadn't taken, and I'd seen a spur leading down from 44F. I was curious if the two joined up.

The spur was tough to find though. It was super clear last time, but since then, everything has leafed out and the brush had grown up. I walked past it and back past it, 3 or 4 times before eventually just walking downhill until I found it and then backtracking to find where it hits 44F. If I hadn't known it was there, there's no way I'd have seen it.

But I did find it, and it was semi-easy to follow, and it sort-of went where I expected it to, and I made a few discoveries before it joined back up with the trail we'd been on before.

First, there was this gnarly old poplar shell.

All the limbs were gone, but the bark still looked kind-of alive. It was quite large. I could have climbed inside of the hollow. In retrospect, I should have taken a photo with the camelback in front, for scale, but that didn't occur to me at the time.

Further down, there was this big chunk of pyrite in the middle of the trail.

It was like a foot and a half across. Again, should have put the camelback down there for scale.

And then there was this old cable.

That's about the dozenth cable I've found way up in the woods. It might have been tied across the trail at some point, or maybe it was used to haul logs out at some point. Either way, it's been up there for a long time.

When I got down to Naked Mountain Branch, I wasn't 100% sure that I was on the right trail. It seemed like I was following the right creek, and it seemed that I was in the right general area, geographically, but I didn't recognize it at all with all the brush and leaves.

Passing the little shelter along the creek confirmed my location though.

"Ok, good. I am where I think I am."

Always a good feeling.

Last time we were up there, we saw a trail leading up along Henson Creek, where it diverges from Naked Mountain Branch, but we left it alone at the time. It was clearly a much older trail, as the construction of the main trail had obliterated the intersection, leaving the old trail suspended 4 or 5 feet up the backslope.

I followed it though, and man was it difficult to follow. It was super overgrown, crossed the creek a dozen times, and the brush on the hills to either side was just as dense, so I couldn't just parallel the old trail. There was hog rooting all over the place too, and it looked like the pigs had worn in their own trail.

There was a small trickle of a waterfall up there, but nothing spectacular.

Eventually the trail joined the creek and never diverged again. The creek then dried up, and the woods opened up to either side. I just kept walking uphill. I figured I'd hit the ridge around Henson Gap and take the AT back east around to the car.

The whole area up there is bear country, and though I didn't see a bear, I did see this mark on a tree just above the creek.

I've heard of bears marking their territory by tearing the bark off of trees. I've seen such things before, but not where I could definitively say that it wasn't likely done by humans, maybe looking for tinder. This mark was up above arms reach though, at least for a person. Plus it was seriously in the middle of nowhere. It seemed, at least, a good candidate for having been made by a bear.

And then there was this really large Poplar too.

This time, it did occur to me to put my camelback down at the foot of it for scale.

Man, it was big! The lowest branches had to be 60 feet up. I had a hard time being sure that it was a Poplar even. It's not as healthy as the Gennett Poplar at Bear Creek, but it's bigger around for sure.

I proceeded uphill along one of the little spines of Spaniards Knob, hoping to hit the ridge west of Henson Gap. Somewhere up there, I found a long vein of chunky, exposed rock and climbed that rather than kicking my way through all the ferns and tickweed.

I ended up a little further west than I'd intended, but it worked out, and after a short descent, I made it to the AT at Henson Gap.

As luck would have it, there was a good log there, for a-setten down, and I had a little snack.

I also assessed the shape of my body. It's not unusual to get scratched up off trail, but there was something in the air today. Pollen, spores, or something. Maybe fern spores. Whatever it was, I was clearly allergic. All my scratches were swollen and puffy. The older ones were starting to calm down, but they were still a lot worse than usual. One on my neck was so puffy that I'd notice it when I'd turn my head. I'd already had two coughing fits and I'd been sneezing a lot too. Ugh.

The damage was mostly confined to my ankles and forearms though. The scratches were calming down. Sitting there at the gap, my sinuses cleared up too. Ok. I was good. No immediate danger at least.

Some hikers came through after a few minutes. They'd started at Arkaqua Gap, hiked that up to Brasstown, taken Jacks Gap to the AT, and were heading towards their car at Unicoi. Hmmm... Sounds like a good route, actually. Might need to try that one some day.

They were getting close to the end, so they kept moving. I finished my little meal and hit the trail myself. Compared to what I'd been on, the AT felt like a sidewalk, so I jogged it. I passed the group I'd seen at the gap near Blue Mountain. On Blue Mountain, I ran into the shelter steward and talked to him for a few minutes. Up on Blue Mountain, I passed 3 more hikers.

At FS44F, I hung a right and kept going. It was a little rough for jogging so I walked out on it. Near the end I saw a cigarette on the ground, and it reminded me of the Nicorette gum Clark'd found last time we were up there. Too bad Clark packed it out. The cigarette guy might have found it and chewed it instead.

At 44 I hung a right and made tracks back to the car.

I did take one short detour into the old food plot right there next to Old 44F though. Most of it was overgrown, but this flowing little meadow did still remain. It was barely visible from the road. I'm not sure I'd have seen it if I wasn't on foot.

I grabbed some dinner in Cleveland, at the Cancun Grill. I think that's the name. Something like that. When the waitress brought me my ticket, I asked "Pay here, or up front?" but from the shocked and concerned look that instantly shot across her face, she must have thought that I said something entirely different. So I rephrased it: "Should I pay you here, or go over to the register to pay?" "Ohhhhh!" (relieved) "Whichever you like." I racked my brain trying to figure out what she thought I'd said, but I couldn't come up with anything. Felt a little bad for the misunderstanding though.

So, re-reading this now, it seems like I had a pretty good time. But, I guess I'm leaving some details out. It was extremely difficult. More difficult than it was rewarding. The undergrowth shredded me and the deadfall beat me to pieces. It involved extended climbs, off trail, directly up the side of the mountain, twice. Whatever it was that I was allergic to gave me the business. The only wildlife that I saw was that one pair of bugs. All-in-all, if you had to pick a hike to miss, that would have been a good one. I mean, it wasn't terrible, and I did find some really interesting stuff, but it's definitely more fun to read about than it was to do.

And yet, I'll probably be back up there in a few weeks, right back at it again.