Pigeon Mountain

We went on a family camping trip this past weekend to Pigeon Mountain; a ridge that V's off of Lookout Mountain in North West Georgia.  I had to convince Justin that we would 'drive up and camp' instead of doing a hike-in trip, and I'm glad I did.  Hauling 5 people's belongings and 2 days worth of food on our backs would have added more adventure to this already action-packed trip than I think we could have handled.  Plus, it's not like I was asking for a bath house, a water spicket, or electricity or anything.

We pulled up to the trail head of "The Pocket" and began to scope out the nicest looking piece of ground for our tent.  And then it started to rain. 

We got the tent up and pools of water gathered inside of it.  I had brought just one towel, which was quickly used as a dam, along with some of my 'day #2' clothes that I sacrificed (who needs to really wear a clean set of clothes on day 2 anyways? I'm pretty sure I just brought them to sop up rain water).  We were trying to decide whether or not our sleeping pads would float well on the sea of water pooling up on the bottom of the tent.  Finally Justin mentioned that we could surrender and go to a hotel if need be... and then the rain stopped.  Late that night, we finally crawled into our soggy sleeping bags and drifted off to sleep.  Except me... I was too busy watching the sea of pulsing fireflies in the woods... and then listening to the owl making a racket.... and listening to some animal outside our tent that was kicking a bucket around (ok, maybe not, but that's what it sounded like).... and wondering if snakes were trying to find a dry spot under our tent as a friendly hiker had warned us...

In the morning we enjoyed pancakes and got ourselves ready for a hike up the mountain.  As we climbed we enjoyed some of the unique features of this habitat.  Namely, lots of salamanders and LOTS of large centipedes (which the children stopped to admire every few feet).

When we got to the top of the mountain there was a beautiful field and an old barn.  I ran through the field and leaped!  It was freeing!  Beautiful!

I saw a clump of honeysuckle and directed my son towards it.  The kids love to eat honeysuckle.  A moment later Justin started walking up the same way that William had just gone when he got a BIG warning and I heard him yell, "WHOA! Rattle Snake!!"  My heart skipped a beat.  A rattle snake.  Lying a few feet from where I had just allowed my son to walk by himself.  A rattle snake.  I've been to a few "snake shows" at our local library, and the guy was great about dispelling most people's silly fears about snakes, but he made one thing really clear: "Don't ever ever EVER mess with rattle snakes!" He told a story about someone who fell down dead 15 minutes after getting bitten.  "Gandalf, NO!" we yelled as our dog obliviously and clumsily walked towards the rattling snake.  How would we get a victim down the hill quickly?  How fast could the emergency vehicles get to us?  Could one of us have met our fate right there on that mountain!?  My mind was racing (come on Mommies, you know what I'm talking about, right?), and I tried to slow it down.  We were of course all fine... even the dog.  The snake didn't want to bite us, it just wanted to get away.  And THANK GOD that He gave them a rattle!  I mean really!  Justin surely would have stepped on it otherwise.  Oh, and after all this Justin did some research to ease my fears about how quickly one might die after a bite.  About 3,000-5,000 people get bitten by rattle snakes a year and 7-10 die... usually after hours and hours.  So, maybe that 15 minute story was someone who went into allergic shock.  Still don't want to get bitten though.  For real.

Well, I didn't go running blissfully through any more fields after that.


Later in the afternoon we hiked through the Estelle mines.  We clamored through tunnels that were dug out through the slate mountains.  Inside of them it was dark and cold.  As you emerged the warm humid air would pound you in the face and welcome you back to the Georgia summer.

After roasting hot dogs and playing in the creek, we picked all the ticks off of us and went to bed.  I was exhausted and my eye hurt from the 3 or 4 gnats that had flown into it (my eye was swollen and infected in the morning).  I didn't care what animal was kicking a bucket outside; I was going to sleep! So sleep I did.

Our last day in the great outdoors was spent hiking up to a very rocky waterfall and then visiting "Rock Town," but not before I made a body print Andy Goldsworthy style.

This is something I've wanted to do for the last 10 years, but the rain and conditions never seemed to work out for me until this moment.  In this case, rain on our camping trip was a bonus!

 As we hiked up to the waterfall, I was amazed at these two trees that had fallen against each other and were holding each other up.  In college I made an art piece of two sanded cedar sticks that were balanced against each other in a similar way.  It was called "dependent."  I was a bit in awe to see what looked like a much bigger version of my piece.

 The rock formations at the waterfall were fascinating.  It looked like an outdoor auditorium with stair steps leading up to gigantic rocks that formed a perfect little cave to explore.  After we packed up camp we drove 45 minutes (or 4 miles as the crow flies!) to Rock Town.  If you've ever been to Rock City, this is quite similar... but no psychedelic gnomes and black-light crystals.

 William didn't want to leave this place.  He and Vera imagined they were slaying dragons and wielding ruby swords as they climbed over and under massive rock structures.  Oh yeah, and we found one more snake, but this time it was just a non-lethal black snake.

 When we got home we did one final check for ticks, since we had 15+ along the course of our adventures, and then everyone got a nice long bath... which never felt so good.