06/01/00 Hiking Pocket :
This is a 9.5 mile loop that climbs Pigeon Mountain and is part of the Crockford-Pigeon Mountain Wildlife Management Area. It then follows the ridgeline for 2.3 miles. The view to the northwest looks down on McLemore Cove, a valley of farmland between Pigeon and Lookout Mountains. Like Lookout Mountain, Pigeon Mountain is laced with caves that wind through the limestone rock. In fact, the entire mountain is a vast system of underground caves and caverns and stream channels.
When I arrived at the head at 8:30am I actually found the beginning of 3 different s. Estelle Mine went off to the left, Pocket Wildflower went off to the right and Pocket went up the middle along a service road.
15-30 foot sandstone cliffs lined the left side of the as I started up the service road on the Pocket . Looking down on the right I could see a dried up creek bed some 75 feet below. Because of the sheer drop, I presume I was moving along the rim of a tall sandstone cliff.
A quarter of a mile brought me to the junction of the North and South Pocket Loop s. I assumed I would go up one and come back the other so continued up the service road on the North Pocket Loop .
The north led alongside another dried up creek bed for a short distance and then veered off. I found myself huffing and puffing and resting on a couple of moderately steep pitches. This season's hiking as only included a previous 2 mile and a 4.7 mile hike. I didn't want to stress the body too much on this 9.5 mile hike. I had every intention of turning back if things became to stressful. Us old folks gotta watch out for stuff like that, otherwise we might not get any older.
Lots of strange looking critters curled themselves up on the . I dunno what they were. They looked mostly like a legless centipede or a legless salamander but had all the speed of a snail. They weren't fat enough or slimy enough to be a snail or slug though. They were a dark brown, 3-4 inches long and a little thicker than a pencil.
Wild blackberries appeared frequently at side, already turning from red to black. With bare legs, I became a little more careful moving vines and stuff out of the way with the walking stick. I became even more careful when I felt a couple of ticks crawling up my leg.
I didn't know what was at the top of Pigeon Mountain but figured to get there between 11:00-11:30am. I thought I was averaging 2.0-2.5 mph on the flatter stretches and 0.5-1.0 on some of the steeper stuff. Imagine my surprise when the leveled off and started down around 10:30am. Either I was moving along at 3mph, the south loop was much longer than the north loop or I hadn't reached the top yet.
This is a well defined . Lots of blue blazes and numerous piles of horsesh*t made it even easier to follow. I came to a clearing with a sign pointing to the service road on the right. I got on the road and followed it for a while without paying a whole lot of attention to anything. Hey, I was on a road, how hard can that be too follow?
But then the blue blazes somehow changed to orange? Oops. I continued on for a ways just to make sure they weren't some real old blazes or blue blazes weren't interspersed. Both suppositions proved false when I ran into a gate. I'd come about a mile or so and wasn't too happy retracing my steps.
Halfway back I found where the divided. Someone had stapled a bunch of pie plates with arrows for the past couple of miles and I guess I had been following them, rather than the blazes. The Pocket was clearly marked veering off to the right and, mumbling to myself, I picked it up again.
The kept going up but now I could catch an occasional glimpse of the valley and the ridge on the other side of it. Shortly before noon I found a couple of small outcrops giving nice views of the valley and ridge. While having lunch and enjoying the nice breeze coming across the valley, I watched 3 turkey vultures fly over and check me out for a possible feast. They flew away disappointed when I sat up.
The path down seemed shorter and steeper. It took me 3.5 hours or so to get to the top and only about 1.5 hours to get back down. That seems a bit out of proportion. I noticed some walnut shells along the way and some trees with scraggly bark and maple leaf type leaves.
Back at the head were two horse ers. I guess they too were going up the north because I hadn't seen or heard them coming down the south .
06/02/00 Hiking Rocktown :
I made the long, rough drive up the side of Pigeon Mountain to the Rocktown head. After yesterday's 10+ miles on wobbly legs, today was supposed to be a day of rest, more or less.
The Rocktown is only a mile out and another back again. But, it leads to 150 acres of massive boulders and I figured I could spend some time in there.
I picked a map of Pigeon Mountain up at the check station. It shows a whole bunch of interconnecting s all over the mountain. I saw many campsites on the way up, several of which were occupied. I was at the head by 9:30am and 4 cars already preceded me.
The into the boulder field was nice and flat as I'd hoped it'd be. Halfway in, 15-20 foot cliffs began crowding in on the on both sides with some ledges leaning out over the . I could see many other outcrops and formations off the too. Off by themselves, I could also see 3 pinnacles in the 20 foot range.
When I reached the beginning of the boulder field proper, I was greeted by several 20 foot bluffs that seemed badly pitted. There are no s, per se, I just wandered around admiring the rock formations. Just walking around so disoriented me completely and I had no idea which way was up.
Many large trees grew up right beside boulders, spreading themselves out to conform to the contours of the rock. Some formations had what looked a lot like the vertebrae of the backbone of some long forgotten dinosaur. But that wasn't really likely.
Scrambling up and down, over, under and around boulders it occurred to me this is prime sunning areas for the local rattlesnakes. And Georgia has its share of eastern diamondbacks, timber rattlers, pygmy rattlers and the like. I think they even have copperheads. A saw several chipmunks that might provide a nice meal for them too.
I walked and squeezed through many crevasses, corridors and paths between 20+ foot boulders too numerous to count. After wandering around for an hour or so I thought it prudent to spend some time trying to find my way back to the . I knew I had gone mostly downhill and more to my left than right. The next half hour of searching failed to turn up the . None of the boulders I was seeing looked familiar either.
I had taken a position on the GPS at the head as usual and finally got it out. It pointed north by northwest, a little to my left. I got the compass out and it said north by northwest was about 90 degrees more to my left. Hmmm. Who to believe and why can't I match them up. And then I remembered you have to be moving for the GPS to provide an accurate heading. I walked a little way and the GPS gradually lined up with the compass. By that time I was standing in the middle of the at the entrance to the boulder field.
I'd read about people becoming disoriented and dieing in blizzards just a few feet from their homes when they couldn't see. I can see how that could happen now, being so close to the but not having a clue. Can you imagine the fear a blind person would feel, by themselves, in an unfamiliar location with traffic and noise all around them. <shudder!>
I had lunch right there at the entrance. Sitting there I could see thousands of red ants scurrying around doing whatever it is ants scurry around doing. I could hear a pilated woodpecker hammering away halfheartedly at a dead tree nearby.
As I was getting ready to leave a group of 4 rock climbers appeared and began setting up to do some pitches right in front of me. I did some rock climbing in the 70's but had no urge at all to join them.
06/03/00 Hiking Pocket , Again:
I started out the day intending to do the Estelle Mine on Pigeon Mountain. I stopped by the end of the on SR 193 to take position with the GPS and then drove to the head. Here I took another position and determined the Estelle Mine was only a little more than 3 miles. I also figured the would be over flat terrain and I wanted to do more than that.
So, I decided to do the 9.5 mile Pocket again. This time I would go up the south loop and come back down the north loop. I've found in paddling and hiking that you can do the same trip from different directions and everything looks entirely different.
When I had stopped at the end of the Estelle Mine I saw about 20 horse ers parked and a lot of tents but no people. My assumption was they were all out on the s early. Three of them entered the Pocket at the same time I did. Mine was the only truck in the parking lot so they must have come from the Estelle Mine .
When I had come down the south loop the other day I thought it might have been steeper than the north loop. Struggling up the confirmed that for me. Even so, I moved upwards for 50+ minutes without stopping for a rest. I thought that was pretty good for me on a lower moderate type this early in my hiking season.
After my rest, I started running into horses on their way down. I kept moving steadily upwards and had to move off the narrow several times to let them pass. I was also dodging a lot more horsesh*t on the . Every pile had these ugly black beetles all over it. <yuk!>
I got to the top of the ridge in 1.5 hours and got to the better of 2 overlooks in another 15 minutes.
A skinny, little black snake with a yellow ring around its neck skittered across the in front of me. It was only about 6 inches long and not even half as thick as a worm. If I stood still it would stop, trying to sense where I was. If I moved, it panicked and would go scooting away as quickly as it could.