Cochran Mills (Fulton County, Georgia)

Cochran Mills southwest of Atlanta is one of my favorite places to hike in the area, with it's combination of ruins and water features, I just find it an enjoyable experience every time I visit. Whenever the Meetup holds a hiking event here, I try to attend if my schedule allows. Having come from the nearby Banning Mills, I arrived a little early today and just waited near the parking area for others to arrive, which they did a few minutes before the scheduled start time. As usual, we did our round of introductions and then crossed back over the parking area and entered the woods. 

The yellow trail, which we started on is a bit overgrown with tall grasses and has been trampled pretty well by equestrians, leaving it a muddy mess in some places. It's still pleasant to be out here with friends though. As we make our way through the woods, we discuss some of the fungus we see growing on trees and do our best to avoid the joro spider webs that seem pop up everywhere these days. I organizer almost runs face first into one of the big specimens that has a leg span of around four inches. They aren't dangerous to humans, but I'm still not a fan.

We push ourselves pretty well and when we finally reach waterfall at Bear Creek towards the north end of the park, we stop for a short break. The creek passes through a narrow chute in the granite before spread back out to fan over the waterfall below. Sometimes the water level is low enough that we can hop over this chute and hit the trails on the other side. We discuss doing this today and while I'm confident that I and many others could make this jump, there is some danger involved and some of our members may struggle. We decide to forgo the leap and just take lunch. 

While sitting here, someone notices a small venomous copperhead between a couple of rocks right by where we are sitting. In fact, there had been a couple (not part of our group) sitting on one of the rocks when we arrived. They were completely oblivious to the dangerous creature, and are surprised when we point it too them. Everyone keeps their distance and I use the zoom feature on my camera to get a decent picture. As strange as it sounds with all of the hiking I do, this is actually the very first copperhead I've seen in the wild since moving to Georgia almost six years ago.

After our little adventure with the snake, we start the trek back towards the parking area. It's still a few miles and we have one big climb, which I make a point to run up just to get my heard pumping. The rest of the way is uneventful and we arrive back at the cars and say our goodbyes. Instead of departing though, I decide to walk to the other side of the park to visit the larger waterfall and ruins of the old mill. It's less than a quarter-mile and always worth taking in. There are a quite a few people in the pool below the waterfall just seeking some relief from today's oppressive head and humidity. I take my picture and head back to the car. My distance for this hike was 7.7 miles. I would have liked to get in a few more miles, but this will have to do.