After yesterday’s Ravencliff knob drive up and short hike I was ready for a good hike. It has finally gotten colder in North GA and I am ready to do some bushwhack hikes. After church at the Ridge, Lynn wanted to decorate the cabin for Christmas. This meant I was on my own. I had downloaded the tracks and printed some maps and trail guides for this one. This summit is accessed off of Cavender Gap Road in the Coopers Creek WMA area. The summit is also directly behind a church where my cousin is the preacher. I have been coming to Suches GA since I was a teenager. I used to Trout fish in the late 80’s and early 90’s every week at Cooper’s Creek. In fact, my second date with Lynn was trout fishing at Coopers Creek. She had said she really wanted to do that and wanted to go sometime. I told her to have her waders and fishing gear ready at a really early hour and I would take her . She showed up with all her gear. I took her, caught a mess of fish, went back to my grandmother’s house, cleaned and cooked the fish for her as well as some homemade hush puppies. I knew right then I had a keeper. It wasn’t much longer and we were engaged to be married. My Granny and Granddaddy Shannon’s ashes are scattered in Coopers creek. On the first anniversary of my dads death I camped out there by my self. Needless to say it is a special place to me. Oh yeah, back to the hike. It is hunting season and I am about to be walking through a WMA. Luckily I had Lynn’s Auburn University orange hoodie in the Jeep, so I figured that would be as good a hunter’s safety orange. I hit the trail. The guide I had said to take the left fork at .3 miles. At about this distance the road/trail forked. I followed it for a while and decided it was going all the way to the end of the ridge line. I decided to bushwhack straight up to gain the ridge line. This was quite a work out. I made the summit, set up, changed into dry top layers and started activating. The band was hot. I made 35 contacts! I decided since the time had changed and daylight was coming to an end soon I would pack it in. I went back down the ridge line and found a good path down. The GPS really came in handy. Turns out the fork to the left at .3 miles when I started was a really faint trail. This was probably a good half mile shorter on the return trip. Turns out I am not the only one to take this same rout. Pat KI4SVM had done the same. I changed tops again when I got to the Jeep and made it back to the cabin before dark. What a day!
Rocky Mountain (W4G/NG-050) 11/26/2017
KC4WZB 