Do Not Try This At Home (unless home is, say, not GA)

So, I went back to Arabia Mountain. And I already blogged all this, but lost the post before it got published. Needless to say, I was very vexed. 

Anyway, in my original post, I made note of several things that it is important for any hiker to remember. 

1--what sorts of temperatures are associated with Georgia in July

2--what sorts of air quality is associated with Georgia in July

3--what the word "mountain" implies

4--what "unmarked trail" means

Clearly, I remember none of these things. And I ventured forth, with a book, an apple, a camera, a notebook, and some extra H20. 

 

Incidentally, finding the trail up to this part took me about twenty minutes, because I wasn't expecting it to be on the other side of highway.

 

 

Why, is that 400 million year old transformed granite through those trees?!

 

 

I think it's really cool the way the stone has sheared off and left these giant cubes and rectangles--like some giant's bench or footrest.

 

Ah, the famous swirls of lithonia "gneiss."

 

 

 

Look at the rust! Look at the rust! Cool!

 

This is, by the way, a completely different lake.

 

 

Wow, it's a hundred degrees outside. I think I'll climb that. Unmarked trail be damned!

 

And since I'm now becoming very aware of exactly how very much it is a hundred degrees outside, I am getting no closer to this ledge. But look how high!

And this is back at the beginning, as I sit shivering because I have been an idiot to hike up a mountain that has no marked trail in 100 degree weather in July in Georgia. And really, at this point, I just totally deserve to get kicked out of Mensa. 

So, I have taken a small hiking break to work on my cooking skills. Which was moderately successful--I made some potatoes and carrots and broccoli, which all came out well, and I mashed the leftover potatoes to fry up in potato cakes tomorrow. I DID, however, slightly overcook a very beautiful piece of tuna, but since I have never in my life cooked fish before, I forgive myself. I will simply have to buy more tuna and practice again. A tragedy indeed, eh?

Oh deer oh deer

So, I have yet to actually start doing any yoga. Instead, I am completely pre-occupied with my new hobby. Hiking. 

I was at the bookstore last week (again) looking for cookbooks and a map of this thing called PATHways--which is a system of paved bicycle/jogger/walking paths that run through DeKalb county and on towards Alabama. I couldn't just look up a map of the paths on-line, I had to order a book. And silly me, I figured the LOCAL bookstore would have a map of the LOCAL project. I was totallly wrong. 

But they DID have this great book called 60 Hikes within 60 Minutes of Atlanta. And that sounded much better than the PATHways thing. So I bought it.

And so far I have only hiked ONE of the 60. And not even the whole thing. But I'm completely obsessed now with exploring every area this book recommends. And let me show you why.

The place I've gone to, twice now, is called Arabia Mountain. It's about 30 minutes east of Decatur (where I live). Now I will quote the Arabia Mountain website: "Arabia Mountain is known as a rock outcrop and a monadnock. A monadnock is an isolated hill standing above the surrounding area, in this case wooded Piedmont land." 

Arabia is made of a kind of rock that used to be granite, and was transformed into something called "Lithonia gneiss" (apparently pronounced "nice.") It's about four hundred million years old, and has been an area of human settlement for the last seven thousand years. 

How cool is that?

Now, Arabia Mountain is in this big park that is, of course, a Nature Preserve. And I have to say, out of the two thousand acres this park encompasses, I have only hiked about three miles.

 

It's about a mile through these woods to get to the lake and the granite. And while I was trekking along, there was a tremendous rustling in the underbrush, and DEER came leaping out and bounded past me and off into the woods. DEER. 

 

Clearly, this is the lake.

 

 

 

And after trekking alongside the lake for a bit, there's this path of granite here, which leads to, oddly enough, granite.

  

  

  

  

  

  

And then there's these mysterious building remnants, and more Piedmont forest. 

And all of that was just one section of the Arabia Mountain Trail. Pretty neat, eh?