Bears

I will finish the hiking story soon, but this work thing is keeping me busy, and I will be on the road for the majority of the week. In the meantime, I would like to address an important subject, Bears. Many hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts are ill informed on bears and their habits. This is the most informative sign I have ever seen, and should be read by all.

100 Miles in 2 Days: Part 3 "The Master Plan"

Friday afternoon of the fateful weekend rolled around. Benji and I met up and went to Wal-Mart (the poor man's REI) to get some last minute supplies. We were packing pretty light. I had a small generic brand camelback in which I managed to fit an army poncho and poncho liner. If you have never seen a poncho liner, it is a wonderful thing. It’s a Soldier’s best friend - light, warm and comfy. Most Soldiers treat it like Linus’ blanky, and refer to it as their Woobi. Anyways, I also tossed in my Swiss army knife, an emergency blanket, a pair of socks, a head lamp, and a butt load of power bars. Benji’s pack was slightly larger, but still just a day pack. Although he decided to jerry rig his sleeping bag to the bottom of it. After picking up our last minute supplies, we headed for the mountains. Of course, we were in two cars because Benji didn’t want to see the same terrain twice. So we drove about eight hours to the northern point of the trail and parked one of the cars. Then we drove all over, around and down the mountains trying to find somewhere to camp near our starting point. After shifting my Jeep into four wheel drive, we managed to climb some massive hill of mud and find a spot to camp. I’m not sure it was technically a camping area, but I was pretty sure most people couldn’t make it up the hill to find us there, as we had experienced a brief moment of “holy crap we’re going to roll” during our barely successful summit attempt. We finally went to sleep at about one in the morning. Our plan was to get up at six and be at the start point by seven. We would hike all day, only stopping to pump water and quickly eat a power bar. We had our time broken down and knew exactly how many miles we needed to go each hour. I can’t remember if we were trying to do three or four miles an hour. That doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re walking straight up a mountain, it becomes quite difficult. We planned on hiking pretty late into the night using our headlamps. The idea of it made us feel like super hiking bad asses who would be admired by all backpackers and stinky trail hippies. We would then stop and take a three to four hour nap to recuperate. After our beauty rest we would wake up muttering, “Sleep is a crutch,” and continue hiking with our headlamps until the sun came up. At this point we would be halfway into the flattest part of the AT and well on our way to a hero’s welcome at the end. We managed to envision and discuss this welcome, but somehow we never managed to discuss how the heck we were going to drive 8 hours back home after walking 100 miles and only getting four hours of sleep. To be continued . .

100 Miles in 2 Days: Part 2 "Preparation"

I wasn't sure that we would make 100 miles, but I knew that I only had to outlast Benji. I could then chastise him and assault his ego, which was as fragile (or large, depending on how you look at it) as mine. Before embarking on our endeavor, I ran into Benji yet again. As he smoked a cigarette, Benji told me that I better be working out because he didn't want me slowing him down, and he had been going to the gym and doing leg presses. I smiled to myself. Benji was doing leg presses while I was running 3 to 6 miles a day (not by choice), sometimes with a ruck sack (also not by choice). Nothing that would set me up to do 50 miles a day, but enough to give me the confidence that Benji would quit before I did. However, I was buying into this whole thing. I wanted to make the 100 miles and be able to tell everybody about how great we were. Beating Benji was just my back up plan to regain the upper hand in manliness. Benji picked a 100 mile section of the Appalachian Trail. According to him, the last 50 miles of this section were the flattest part of the AT. I suggested we do 50 out and 50 back on the flat part, but that was too boring for Benji; he didn't want to see the same terrain twice. This was a critical decision, as we later found out that the first 50 miles was one of the most mountainous sections of the AT. To be continued . . .

Matt B

100 Miles in 2 Days: Part 1 "The Challenge"

This is an old story, but a funny one. My senior year of college (we won't talk about when that was), I was at a bar and ran into Benji, one of my old roommates. He was an outdoorsy guy too, and we had been on a couple of caving trips together. As we started talking, Benji told me that he had been planning on calling me to see if I wanted to go backpacking. He said that he wanted to hike 100 miles in two days, and that all his other friends were too chicken, but he knew that I would do it. I told him he was an idiot. Benji then accused me of being scared, which I vehemently denied. However, my ego can only take so much, a little known fact that Benji was well aware of. He continued his assault on my manhood and after an excruciating 30 seconds, I was on board. We picked a weekend, shook on it, and had a beer to celebrate this brave undertaking. When I awoke the next morning (morning being a figure of speech) the first thing that came into my pounding head was, "100 miles in two days." I ran the whole night and discussion through my head and decided that Benji was probably drunk and would forget about it, or chicken out and hope I had forgotten about it. A few days later I ran into Benji on campus. He hadn't forgotten about it. He made sure that I was still in, and I told him that if he planned it, I would be there. To be continued . . .
Matt B

Conasauga River Trail (Description and Directions)

This weekend I went backpacking on the Conasauga River Trail in the Cohutta Wilderness. It was a perfect weekend trip. From the beginning of I-575 to the trail head is under two hours. The trail is 13.1 miles long and crosses the river 38 times, so be prepared to get wet. Most of the crossings are only ankle deep, but some were knee deep. You can park a car at each end and hike through, or hike out and back. There were multiple areas along the trail that had obviously already been used for camping. You can utilize these sites to minimize your impact on the environment. According to one website the trail is marked with a yellow blaze, but I only saw aqua blazes, and they were few and far between, but the trail was easy to follow. If you are coming from Atlanta, the best route is to take 575 north. It will turn into 5 and 515 near Ball Ground. Continue north until you reach East Elijay, then go west on 52. If you are coming from another direction, you can get on 52 from the town square in Elijay. From the town square go approximately 9.5 miles west on 52. On the left side of the road you will see a big green sign that says Lake Conasauga Recreation Area. Turn right on to FS 18 at the sign. Before I got to the green sign I did see a wooden sign that said the same thing, but I have no idea where that road goes. After 1.3 miles on FS 18 the pavement ends. This is the important part. Normally you would go straight, and this is what I did, but there is a bridge out. The detour sign at the end of FS 18 is missing. When the pavement ends on FS 18, take a right onto the gravel road. It will go a couple of miles and come to a T intersection. Take a left at the intersection onto FS 9o (there should be a detour sign there). Go until you see the next sign and take a sharp right going uphill. You will come to another T intersection at the top of the mountain. Take a right and you will come up on the Conasauga River Trail in about a mile. You can contact the Ranger Station at (706)-695-6737. They are extremely helpful, and will give you directions, or answer any questions. Drive with caution on the back roads. They are very narrow and curvy, and there is more traffic than you would expect. Watch out for morons on dirt bikes going too fast around sharp curves, several tried to plaster themselves on the hood of my truck, but I was too quick for them and got out of the way.

Matt B

Cohutta Wilderness

That work thing got in the way again and forced me to go out of town, so there haven't been any recent posts. However, I'm going backpacking in the Cohutta Wilderness this weekend and will have a full report next week. I'm taking two of my nephews. One is about to leave for college and the other will be a senior in high school. I've acquired a decent amount of random gear, but I don't have enough for three people, so it will be an interesting trip. I have one extremely large pack that I'm planning on putting all the gear in and making one of them carry; they're both wrestlers and in way better shape than I am, plus I'm a slacker. I have a super light weight tent, but we won't all fit in there, so I am currently debating some type of tarp contraption. I also have a light weight stove, but I'm almost out of fuel and don't feel like driving all the way to REI to get more. I'll probably just take my heavier stove, but its low on fuel too, so I'll probably take both. It'll make the pack heavy but, as I stated earlier, I'm not carrying the pack. I also don't have enough sleeping bags, but its summer and I'm sure we'll survive. Check back next week and I'll let you know how it went.

Matt B

Where to Mountain Bike near Atlanta?

One of our readers posted the following message and we would appreciate any recommendations. "I am looking for some good mountain biking around the northern part of Atlanta. I have biked a ton at Sope Creek, but, am looking for some variety. I would like to find a new place that has some beginner and intermediate trails. Does anyone have any suggestions?" I haven't had much time to research other areas (this whole work thing gets in the way), but I did find a lot of videos of people mountain biking at Ft. Yargo in Winder, GA (a short drive up 85 or 316). I've also heard that there is a trail that follows the Little River near Woodstock or maybe Kennesaw. You Tube also had a helmet cam video of Sope Creek that looked pretty cool, but nowhere near as funny as this video.