Fort Mountain State Park

It had been a while since I've been to Fort Mountain. In 2007 Buddy and I hiked the Lake trail, Tower trail and Big Rock trail (see October 2007 post). Later that year we did a group hike and only did the Lake and Big Rock trails. Most of the hikes Paws on the Path (my facebook hiking group) does are about 3 to 4 miles, and are easy hikes. that means I often will go further and harder when possible (not with the group, or scoping out a trail as a possible group hike).


Last week I asked my sister if she wanted to hike this past Saturday. She said yes, but she wanted to try somewhere new (that's why everything that follows is her fault). She originally wanted to try Mistletoe State Park, but because I had done it not that long ago, I suggested Fort Mountain (still her fault).

When we got there (2 hours from Atlanta) the road to the top was closed because the power company was fixing fallen power lines (this should have given us a clue as to what was in store for us, but it didn't) (slowness runs in my family). We decided to climb to the top of Fort Mountain on the Gahuti trail. We figured we could do the west side up and back (estimated 6 miles) and if we felt good we could do the Tower trail (estimated 1 mile). If we did the whole Gahuti trail it would be 8.8 miles.

It was to be a nice bright sunny day (it was), and the temperature was to be in the mid 40s (it wasn't). It was about 36 degrees when we left Atlanta, and about 34 degrees when we got to Fort Mountain (didn't take into account the effect of elevation on temperature) (once again my sister's fault, she went to college, she should know these things) (once again, slow). Luckily we brought winter jackets.

We started off on the Big Rock trail because the Gahuti trails intersects it. As I've said, it's been a while since I've been here, and the last time I was here the Big Rock trail followed a dry waterfall you could climb. It is not dry anymore.

Pat in front of the dry waterfall

Once on the Gahuti trail we started to climb tight sinlgetrack. I love hiking singletrack most of the time, but when you have steep drop offs, and a big clumsy Great Dane trying to pass you, it can be sketchy. Besides the drop off and the impatient Dane, it was icy, wet and leaf covered. Do you know what you get when you have this combo? Me sprawled out on the trail, twice (twice seems to becoming a theme of my discomfort).

This may have been bad enough, but it was to get worse. Christmas eve we had a storm blow through (and I mean blow). The trail was littered with debris, and had three impassable trees laying across it. You could not go over or under the trees, you had to go around them. Remember the steep drop offs? Yes, going around them meant off-roading down the drop off.

The Trail

After the second impassable tree, my sister decided we were not going back down the west side. She didn't care if we had to do the whole 8.8 miles. But, once we were at the top of the Mountain she started worrying about time. So I broke out the map and decided the best trail to take, that was not the trail we came up, was one of the Mountain Bike trails.

So we headed down the mountain on the 302 mountain bike trail. At this time a year the trail was empty of mountain bikers, and was a wide double track. the only problem I had with it was it was not as well marked as the Gahuti trail. This made it a little confusing as too which direction to go when the trail met the 301 and the 303 trail. We made it back to the car in about 3 and a half hours,tired and cold. I would tell you how far we went , but using the Garmin watch with gloves doesn't work too well (I accidentally stopped it around the 3 mile mark).

All in all I had a good time, even with the bloody knee from one of my falls. I would recommend the Gahuti trail, but not as a winter hike. I will go again sometime and do the east side of the trail.

Happy hiking.

P.S. I bought a great shirt at the park office. It says, "Hike faster, I hear banjos."