South Rockdale Park (Rockdale County, Georgia)

 

Between birthday parties and vehicles being in the shop, I haven't been able to get out much the last couple of weeks, which is okay. It was good to spend some time with family, but I've been yearning for some outdoors time. Originally, I had planned to be camping near and hiking up Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina this weekend, but with rain being called for in the forecast, an ascent of that precarious trail seemed like a bad idea. Instead, I opted to head out to a new park with the meetup group. Today, we're hiking at the South Rockdale Park near Arabia and Panola Mountains, a few miles southeast of Atlanta. 

As I signed up last minute, the group leader was a bit surprised to see me, but we've become friends over the past couple of years and I always feel welcome. There was some confusion on the meeting location and some of the hikers who went to a different area, just decided to head out on their own. Nearly thirty of us that made it to the correct spot though and after a quick round of introductions, we headed into the balmy Georgia woods. 

The single track trail runs parallel to the paved bike path, which is part of the Arabia Mountain Heritage Trail (and which I intend to ride in the near future) for much of it's distance. Our path will take us on numerous side trails though. It's a pretty standard trail system with not much being noteworthy. One item that was pretty cool though was a suspension bridge deep in the woods over a large gully. Of course I had to run across it to get it bouncing for those that followed behind me. I'm sure they appreciated it, lol. Strangely, the South River is just a few footsteps away from the end of the bridge. You would think they would build something like this over the actual waterway and not over a small depression. Ah well, I didn't built it.

After a quick 6.5 miles through the woods, we headed back to the cars and were off to enjoy some barbeque and brews at a local establishment. The trail was okay, but nothing worth going out of your way for. As always though, the company is what makes some of these trails tolerable. I also have to admit that it was nice to get my legs moving again.