Not living in the desert or mountains any longer has slightly changed my perspective on repeating hikes. Generally speaking, I don't like to do a hike once I've already completed it. There are far too many other trails out there that I want to explore to see repeats. That said though, living where deciduous trees are dominant, the trails can take on a drastically different character between the seasons. For my first hike of the new year, I decided to join one of the Meetup groups I hike with often to explore the Gahuti Trail at Fort Mountain State Park in northern Georgia.
I had originally planned to do a couple of shorter hikes up this way prior to joining the group, but some overzealous hunters and my desire to not be mistaken for a deer and shot, forced me to abandon that plan and get to the trailhead extremely early. I took a nap in my jeep on this cold morning, while waiting for the others to arrive. While I was waiting, the owner of the group and organizer of today's hike called and asked if I would mind leading the group today in his absence. He hurt his back and wasn't excited about hike 8-10 miles on a somewhat challenging trail if he didn't have to. As I've lead a couple of recent hikes for the group, I was happy to fill in.
As the noon start time approached, I left the warmth of my jeep and headed to the meeting spot. It's much colder than I expected this morning - hovering around the freezing mark. After a few minutes, the others begin to arrive. By start time, there are seven of us ready to go. Since I have the luxury of data service here, I check for any last minute messages and note that one participant had posted that she was running 30 minutes late, but asked us not to wait on her. I appreciate that.
After a round of our customary introductions and a brief overview of the park and trail we are going to do, we get to the business at hand. The benefit of starting near the highest point of the trail is that it's all downhill for a while. Of course, we will have to get that elevation back on the return.
I decided to do this trail counterclockwise today as opposed to the clockwise route we took when I hiked here over the summer. Between the direction switch and the trees having shed their leaves, it looks like a completely different trail. We had some heavy rains just a couple of days ago and the small creeks are flowing like crazy. The trail is also somewhat muddy in areas, but nothing to terrible and it doesn't really pose any issues except on the steep downhills and uphills.
As begin pushing a pretty good pace, a couple of the hikers start falling behind a bit. We wait for them to catch up and when they do, they indicate that we should not wait on them and that they are fine on their own if we get too far ahead. I've hiked with one of them before and I know she's fairly capable and so after confirming, the group essentially breaks in two - a faster group and a slower group.
Making our way around the mountainsides that constitute the park, we cross over a couple of great waterfalls that I really have no memory of seeing before, but as I have hiked this trail in the past, I must have. I assume the water just wasn't flowing enough last time to make them memorable. We take a couple of minutes to take some nice pictures, but of course, every few steps we find a better angle and the whole affair turns into a five-minute ordeal - totally my fault.
Finally, we reach the Cool Springs Overlook near the trailhead. We take a couple of minutes to absorb the great view from this point and then walk the remainder of our mileage on the park road back to our cars - just fifty yards or so. I wish the group well and thank them for coming out. A couple of us take a trip up the steps to the actual namesake of the park, the Native American Fort Wall that was built centuries ago. It's a quick diversion and I'm back at my jeep in no time with a total of 8.9 miles hiked.
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