For my second hike today, I wanted to hit the final of three monadnocks on the southeastern side of Atlanta. In the past several weeks, I've hiked Stone Mountain and Panola Mountain and today, I will knock out the third, Arabia Mountain. Next weekend, I'm doing a small organized event to summit all three of the features in a single day (which really isn't that big of a deal, as it will only be about 8 miles total distance) and I'd really like to have visited all three individually prior to the event.
It's a chilly, but beautiful Saturday and the parking lot at the trailhead is quite busy. After using the restroom, I try to get my directional bearings and head out. The early part of the trail is paved and seems popular among cyclists this morning. As I look for a left turn that crosses the highway, I never see it and so I'm forced to do the loop trail in a counter-clockwise direction instead of clockwise as I had originally planned.
The paved trail does eventually cross the highway and on the other side travels a half-mile or more along a board walk, which skirts the granite mound that is Arabia Mountain. While I do appreciate the beauty of this area, I'm a little perturbed by this boardwalk. I see no reason that a normal trail couldn't have been blazed here and avoided this monstrosity. That seems to be a running theme here in the east; the need to construct stuff along trails just for the sake of constructing stuff. I much prefer the more natural settings of the west to this over-developed outdoor attitude.
After reaching the end of the boardwalk, the trail takes a sharp left and begins heading up the mountain. Concreted cairns mark the path and signs ask hikers to avoid the areas with water and sandy soils to avoid destroying the flora that thrives in them. This includes a species known as diamorpha, which at this time of year appears as short flesh stems poking out of the thin soils to cover the mountainside with patches of brilliant red. These fragile plants are very susceptible to trampling, thus the warning signs.
Reaching the top of the mountain, whose summit is a meager 955', I take a minute to admire the view from up here. With extremely few trees growing out of the granite, the wind blows hard and cold up here, but I like it. It's kind of refreshing.
I start to head down the mountain, trying to stick close to the trail marked on my map and avoiding the soiled areas as much as possible. Unfortunately, I struggle to find the connecting trail and I'm forced to bushwhack a short distance through the woods before finding the connecting trail that leads back to the parking area. I was able to get in just over 2.5 miles on this trail. I'd love to have more distance, but with other plans today, I'll settle for what I can get. Besides, this was actually a pretty nice hike.
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