We Hiked the Entire Appalachian Trail (width)

 

Blairsville, Georgia (high 84, low 62)

 

Bill and Nancy headed out early yesterday for a full day hike up to Blood Mountain and the Appalachian Trail.   We are not in hiking shape to follow in their footsteps, but they told us about a short trailhead which led to the Appalachian Trail and up  Blood Mountain.

We drove over to the Byron Reece Trailhead and parked in the  parking lot, which was almost full by the time we got there. 

People left several walking sticks at the trial head, and in our opinion, they are pretty nice to have on this type of trail.

We started off with a nice easy trail with a gradual incline.  It was cool and shady and very enjoyable.

It got a little rocky and steeper as we went along.

Al worried a little about poison ivy, but I think most of the area was too shady for it to grow.  We hope.

We got to the intersection where the  Appalachian Trail and the Freeman Trail met, which is where Nancy and Bill were.  We walked a short way on the AT, and decided this was good enough for our first real hike in a while.  We haven’t been doing much hiking lately and we still had to get back down all those rocks we had climbed.    Hiking in the mountains is certainly different than what we’re used to in Florida.   We really need to get in better shape.  

 

 

The route back down wasn’t bad, but I did what Nancy called “butt hiking”  going back down some of those steep rock climbs.

 

After we did our hike, we decided to drive over to the Nottley Dam, which is here in Blairsville.   It’s a very nice lake, but the dam is not nearly as big or interesting as the Hiawassee Dam we visited the other day.

The lake is pretty with some nice islands.  We think we’ll take the kayaks over there one day soon.  Maybe with Bill and Nancy.  We might be able to keep up with them in kayaks.

How about the red clay beaches.

The water color is a  deep turquoise greenish color but the shallow water appears green like at these boat houses.

There are some pretty nice houses along the lake.

 

Yep, it looks like a nice paddle is in our future.

 

We got home, rested for a while, then met our friend Eileen who was taking us on another guided golf cart tour of some of the back roads she has discovered.

She is the one who showed us some really cool back roads the other night.  This tour, was on more public roads and not really my favorite.  

I kept wanting to turn around, but I was overruled!

We did see some pretty things though.  This 55 Chevy was a recent purchase of one of our neighbors.  It’s quite a beauty, isn’t it?   check out that shiny chrome bumper.

 

More soybean fields.

farms

I had been wanting to visit a particular old cemetery, where local aviator Micajah Dyer was buried.  We thought we would have to walk up there.

On the way back, Eileen asked if we wanted to go up the cemetery road.  I voted “no” because was steep, narrow, and rocky.  Once again, I was out voted, but as it turned out we hit the jackpot!

I will do a post in a few days about our discoveries there, but here is one interesting grave site we saw.  I’m guessing it’s pretty old.

Here is Al, gloating and saying “I told you so,” as I’m walking through the cemetery with a big smile on my face.

We saw several indications of bear activity, although no actual bears.

We saw corn husks laying in the road right across from a corn field.  We think the bear might have crossed just before we got there.

This next photo is what we think is a very fresh bear slide. You could see the claw marks.  Eileen heard noises up in the woods, so a bear may have been nearby.

No bear sightings yet, but they seem to be checking our the corn fields which have nice ripening corn.