Thu, Mar 8 2012 - Stone Mountain Midday Adventure Hike: Meet OUTSIDE Park. (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Charlie Cottingham Participants: Charlie Cottingham, Rhett Smith, Michael Hitt, David Duffey, Laura V, Mark

Write Up:
  Thanks to Mark, Laura, Rhett, David and Michael who refused to "take Stone Mountain for granite" by joining me to explore some of the park's spectacular natural areas that are seldom witnessed by the public at large.  Especially memorable was our discovery of two massive gnarly cedar trees, each with trunks about 4 feet in circumference - probably at least 250 years old but still healthy and green.  Miraculously, both are growing out of relatively small crevices in the granite high on the mountain.
  En route back to our cars in Stone Mtn village we climbed and hiked through a chain of cavernous old quarries from which millions of cubic feet of granite had been removed during the mountain's 100-year industrial era before it became a park.  Despite the loss of a little skin on our knees and shins I'm proud of us for surviving the "steeps" of this adventurous and memorable 5-mile hike in fine form! -Charlie

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