Fort Yargo Super Moon Hike (Barrow County, Georgia)

Fort Yargo State Park is only a few miles from my house and knowing that tonight would not only be a full moon, but a super moon (when the moon is at it's closest point to the Earth), I decided to schedule a hike for the Meetup to for an evening event at the park. Why not get some miles in while enjoy the lunar show. That said, it had been drizzling off and on all day and while the forecast for this evening looks to be partly cloudy with no call for rain, I'm going to prepare just in case. I had called the park office before scheduling this hike to confirm that the gates didn't close until 10:00pm, by which time we need to be out of there.

Once at the park and after wrapping a work conference call, I met up with the hikers that had signed up for my event. Nine of us in all. We did a quick round of introductions and I explained the plan, which was to hike the loop trail around the lake, which should give us multiple angles to see the moon, which was set to rise about twenty minutes after our planned start time. With all of that out of the way, we crossed the long wooden bridge departing the visitors center and entered the woods. 

Joros, joros, and more joros. That is the theme of the first part of this hike. Very large, but harmless joro spiders seemed to have colonized this part of the park. We pass by hundreds of them waiting for prey in their large, sticky webs. We stop to take a better look at a couple of the larger specimen before continuing on. 

The cloud cover doesn't seem to be easing up and I'm beginning to doubt if we actually get any views of the moon. We continue on though, as there are two objectives to tonight's event and the moon viewing is only one of them. We make pretty good time as we round the northern end of the lake and by this time darkness is beginning to set in. The kudzu tunnels offer a season-appropriate vibe as we pass through them in the twilight. 

Shortly after this section, we begin to feel some rain drops and when it finally starts raining harder, I stop the group and those that prepared properly put on their rain gear. The rain is coming down pretty good now and we are almost exactly halfway across the lake from where we left our cars. We're going to get soaked, but ah well. It's still nice to be outside, though our chances of seeing the moon have shrunk to near zero. 

As we tromp through the wet and somewhat muddy trail, I point out a few things to my comrades, including the ground spider eyes which sparkle back at us when our headlights hit them. I also catch sight of a tiny little snake on the trail and we stop to examine him, as he slithers around in the mud trying to escape us. He's a tiny little thing, only about eight inches long and with a body-diameter of no more than a quarter-inch. Later, I will find out this is called a smooth worm snake and is common in this environment. 

Finally getting back to the parking area and fairly wet, we say our goodbyes and head to our respective homes. I use the restroom and speak with another ranger who very nicely informs that the trail actually close at sundown. I explain that I had gotten conflicting information from the park office and he doesn't make a fuss about it, but just wishes me well. Total distance for the hike was about 6.4 miles, which isn't bad for a Monday evening. On my way home, the rain stops and the clouds part just a bit to allow me to get a picture of the moon from my driveway. So, I guess it was mission accomplished.