Favorite Day Hiking Places 1

Posted by JD 01/26/2011 at 19:00

I hike a few times every week. I prefer 3.5-8 mile hikes. Anything longer is a little too rough on my knees. The hillier the hike, the shorter so a very hilly Pine Mountain Recreation Area hike of 3.5 miles is very satisfying just like an 8 mile hike at FDR State Park. Almost all of these hikes will require hydration. In the summer, even when getting started very early in the morning, I’ve needed 3 quarts of water for some of these hikes, but most only need 1-1.5 quarts.

The List – Google Map Links

These are links to the trailheads and/or parking for each trail. Handy if you have a GPS.

  • Cartersville Area
    • Pine Mountain Recreation Area – the summit has a small seating area with nice views of Lake Allatoona.
    • West Trailhead Parking To the peak and back is under 2 miles and about an hour. Doing both the east and west trails together is a strenuous 2+ hour trek. Lots of parking on this side.
    • East Trailhead Parking Also for Mountain Biking on Wednesday The east trail is about 3.5 miles and meets the West trail at the peak. Together, the East + West trails are about 4.5 miles and 2 hours of strenuous hiking. Parking is limited.
    • Red Top Mountain State Park – Homestead Trailhead Parking 1.5-2 hours and 4.5 miles. This is the easiest of all these trails due to the lack of mountains/big hills.
  • Pine Log Creek Trail About 2 hours and 4.5 miles
  • Fort Mountain State Park Southern Gahuti Trail This isn’t an official trail. By combining the southern part of Gahuti with a few other trails, you can get a 5.5 mile hike. The Gahuti trail is listed as a 7.2 mile loop. That may be true and I’d like to attempt it this spring, before I need to carry a gallon of water to make it. It is possible to split the entire trail into parts or to reserve backcountry campsites for overnight backpacking if you like. There are also cabins available.
  • Sweetwater Creek State Park I like to combine both the white trail and the creek trail for a 1.5 hour hike.
  • FDR State Park – Big Poplar Loop + Sawtooth Trails Combined, these 2 trails are 7.8 miles and 4-5 hours.
  • Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield has many trails. Some of the longer trails are mixed use and must be shared with horses. Others are mostly gravel, which is not comfortable for me to hike.
    • Burnt Hickory Trailhead Just park on the street and head south on the trail. You can build a 3-6 mile hike with the surrounding trails. There is a little more gravel than I like.
    • Kennesaw Mountain Trail You can take either the trail or walk the asphalt road. Up and back are about 35 minutes and a little over a mile. There is a trail that links the two peaks, but I’d never done it. This trail is fairly busy, so you won’t be along or have any feeling that you are in the wilderness. From the peak there are nice views of Cobb/Galleria and on clear days, downtown Atlanta and possibly Stone Mountain.
  • Leita Thompson Memorial Park Sometimes I don’t have much time and still want to get a little walk in. Leita Thompson Park is close enough to my home that I can get there and do 2.5 miles of hilly paved trails fairly quickly. I always see at least 20 other people on these trails and sneakers are fine. There’s a dog run area where leashes are not needed too.

Anyway, there are lots of choices available if you find yourself around Atlanta, GA and wanting to do a little hiking. There are lots of other trails in the area still to be explored. I really like soft dirt and pine needle covered trails and the feeling of being in the wilderness.

Do you have any favorites that you’d like to suggest? Please drop a link to google maps for parking or trailhead locations.

Trackbacks

Use the following link to trackback from your own site:
https://blog.jdpfu.com/trackbacks?article_id=961

  1. JD 01/30/2011 at 09:55

    Just to clarify, the Google Map links show either the trailhead or parking location. Do not trust the GPS Lat/Lon shown in the link, but the link does go to the correct location for parking. Also, Google’s GPS coordinates do not always exactly match my GPS devices. Sometimes there is 500 ft difference, so be prepared for that too.

    With the links, you can get driving directions buy right-clicking on the center of the map (whatever looks like parking) and selecting Directions to Here from the context menu. Then enter your starting address. It will return turn-by-turn directions and give you both the approximate travel time and distance. Very useful stuff.

    Here’s a short list with Lat/Lon as close as Google allows:

    I manually built these links to have only the Lat-Lon, no street or city addresses. Sadly, Google doesn’t seem to center the map on the coordinates provided, so if you plan to zoom in to see the trailhead relative to the parking, you’ll need to Center Here manually first.