Sat, Aug 15 2015 - Atlanta Northside Beltline Hike + Volunteer Cleanup Project (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Charlie Cottingham Participants: Charlie Cottingham, Sharon H, lraymer, Thomas H

We AOCers not only enjoyed a nice hike this morning but also were glad to pitch in with hauling out about 1000 pounds of trash from Tanyard Creek that parallels the Northside Beltline in NW Atlanta near Piedmont Hospital.  The volunteer event was expertly hosted by Tammy Bates and other fine staffers of "CRK," the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper organization - one of our key AOC "partners" in preserving the environment.
Just after the cleanup project was over Sharon and Thomas and I changed clothes and began our hike at the huge wooden train trestle at Ardmore Park, where our cleanup project was HQ'd. We enjoyed the entire paved Northside Beltline in both directions (about 2 mi. total) and also the newly opened paved "PATH" spur trail that connects it with Bitsy Grant Tennis Center.  Along the way we marveled at the many turtles sunning on rocks in the creek - also the lovely creek itself and the huge sycamores, tulip poplars, green ashes, etc. that tower above it and shelter so many sweet-singing songbirds.  Thanks to Thomas for giving me and Sharon an excellent account of the history of this trails network since he moved to the area in the 1980s - also for taking us up the hill to a lovely small park on Northside Drive that had been donated by the family who once lived in a home there.
In the future it will be fun to add onto this hike several more of the numerous shady "satellite" neighborhood parks that are easily accessible by foot from the Beltline and from the new Bitsy Grant spur trail.
- Submitted by Charlie, Sat Aug 15 at 3:00 PM.
p.s. During the cleanup project it was fun for me and our other AOCers to work together as part of a "focus group" near the big trestle headed up by Jerry Bickford, Tammy's fiance.  Like me Jerry is a motorcyclist and has some amazing tales from the hundreds of thousands of miles he as ridden.