Monadnock Madness (DeKalb and Rockdale Counties, Georgia)

When I hiked Panola Mountain a few weeks ago, I learned of an event run by the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area. For the last 8 years, this organization has organized guided hikes of all three of the monadnocks southeast of Atlanta during a single day. A monadnock, as I have recently learned, is a mountain-like geologic formation that is not part of a mountain range. They generally result from cooling magma floating to the surface. Just a few miles southeast of Atlanta, Stone Mountain, Arabia Mountain, and Panola Mountain provide great examples of the phenomena. How could I resist an event like this?

First on the list is Stone Mountain, which I have hiked around and summitted previously. Of today's three mountains, Stone is the tallest and by far the most prominent. It's also the most visited, thanks in part to it being the closest to the city, but more likely because of all of the event infrastructure built around the granite dome. 

Meeting up with the group of "Monadnockers" in a predefined parking lot, the 47 or so of us split into two groups and began making our way up the steep granite trail. It seems mother nature is in a cooperative mood today, as the weather is simply outstanding. The nice lady guiding my group seems very knowledgeable of the mountain and its storied history and a shares much of this with the group as we slowly make our way up the steep slopes of the Walk-up Trail. The group's pace is pretty slow, but the attendees seem nice and in good spirits. Eventually though, we reach the top and take some time to admire the view from 800' above the city.

After a short time, I begin to make my way down to the parking lot. The group offers to caravan over, but I'm kind of anxious and just head out on my own, with the directions provided. The total distance at Stone Mountain was right about 2.5 miles. Not a bad start to the day.

Arriving at Arabia Mountain's visitor center, I take advantage of my early arrival to eat down one of the peanut butter sandwiches I packed for lunch. Soon after, the rest of the group arrives and we start heading out once again with a very nice park ranger. When I was hear just a couple of weeks ago, I was complaining about the long board walk necessary to reach the ascent trail. The ranger though, shortcuts the board walk and takes us directly up the granite mountain. An amazing amount of lichens cover this face of the mountain, and while we do our best to avoid stepping on the primitive plants, its completely unavoidable in some places. 

Reaching the summit, which is considerably lower than Stone's, we break off and begin exploring around taking note of the various flora species up here, including diamorpha, which is almost ready to bloom and provides a stark red color against the bare granite. As I learn, though it rains a lot in this area, the rain-water almost immediately runs off the granite dome. With no soil to hold the moisture, the area is very desert like and the flora has had to adapt to this very dry landscape. There are even yucca and prickly pear cactus growing up here naturally. I never would have expected to see this in central Georgia, especially with all the rain we have experienced since moving here.

We begin heading to the second summit, which I didn't even realize existed. It's slightly lower than the high point, but it's a ways distant. I'm amazed at how much granite is here and how large of an area it covers. Apparently, this didn't go unnoticed by settlers in the past. As we wander around the multi-football field-sized area, we see remnants of quarrying efforts of decades past. In fact, they have really torn the hell out of the area around this second summit. It's a shame that so much beauty was destroyed by these efforts.

Soon we head back to the parking lot and begin to make our way to the final destination of the day, Panola Mountain. With all of the wandering around, I was able to log almost 3 miles here at Arabia.

For our hike to the top of Panola Mountain, we are joined by a ranger and several volunteers. This mountain is designated as a National Natural Landmark and protected as such. Unlike Stone and Arabia, the granite that comprises Panola is not of a quality suitable for mason work and so, other than some experimental sections, was never quarried. Additionally, the infrastructure that would normally accompany a quarry was never built. This has allowed Panola to remain in a very pristine state in comparison to the other two. Additionally, a threatened plant species grows here in some sections. The granite stonecrop is a very picky little plant that only grows on granite outcroppings and underneath red cedar trees. I learned of this on my last visit and did some research, but it seems scientists aren't exactly sure why these very specific conditions need to exist for the plant. Regardless, the rangers and volunteers are very protective of their threatened little friends. 

We park the cars in a field off of a restricted park road and begin to head out in two groups, with each group going a different direction of the loop trail to the top. As we make our way, the volunteers leading our group share much about the geology and ecology of the mountain, which is quite fascinating. The two groups eventually meet near the summit and a group picture is taken. Since we have completed the challenge, we are awarded a printed handkerchief noting our accomplishment. It's kind of silly, but I appreciate the effort these folks put into the event.

Finally, we make our way down and back to the field where we left the cars. The park has prepared a campfire and smores for the group and many of my fellow hikers head that way, but as I'm hungry for real food, I decide to say my farewells and depart. Here at Panola Mountain, I logged about 1.7 miles, bringing today's total to 7.2 miles. It was a fun event.