Hiking a new Stone Mountain Lakeside Trail and Volunteering with the GA Native Plant Society - Free Park Entrance included.

NOTE DIFFERENT STONE MTN PARK MEETUP SPOT!  Please carefully follow the DIRECTIONS BELOW to our special parking lot for this event and how to request FREE Parking & Park entrance (as a GNPS volunteer) if you don't have an annual pass. Bundle Up!  No more than a 20% chance of any rain or snow is expected, but chilly - not above the high 30s all morning!

Hope you can join me this Friday morning to celebrate the AOC's 2017 "extra focus" on Volunteerism - giving back to the environment and to the community!  This will be the first event officially offered by your new AOC Volunteer Events committee, created just last week by our 2017 management team.  I'm honored to be appointed as its first Director, with my friend Mike Simonovich working closely with me as Co-Director.  We're proud of the AOC's fine and ever-growing tradition of participating in numerous worthy volunteer projects each year.  Our newly founded committee is based on realizing how important these "give-back" efforts are, esp. to all who share our love for nature and the outdoors.  Our AOC volunteer projects also help cement strong relationships with like-minded "partner organizations" - our local, State and National Parks, various "Friends of Parks," other conservation & community support groups, and key outfitters such as REI, etc.

EVENT PLAN:  We'll gather a few minutes before 9:00 in the special parking lot discussed below that is just 0.4 mile inside the MAIN Eastern Park Entrance - see Directions below (a DIFFERENT lot than originally posted on Tue AM).  After introductions we'll begin with about a 2-mile hike on Stone Mountain's lovely and relatively new lakeside "Muscogee Trail" during which we'll take the time to pick up some of the trash that we may find along the way - I'll bring a supply of lightweight bags for this.
  Then at about 10:00 we'll hook up with my friends in the GA Native Plant Society at their plant propagation garden.  (It adjoins a large parking lot that fronts on Robt. E. Lee Drive about 0.2 mile toward the large carving from the WEST park gate).  The regular weekly GNPS volunteers have invited us to work with them for about an hour on various easy plant-related tasks including perhaps seeding, "up-potting," raking, etc.  After the event officially concludes (at 12:00 noon) you're welcome to join me to visit (if your time permits) a couple of other "off-the-beaten-trail" wonders inside the Park.

FOR INFO about the GA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY and its worthy environmental missions, etc. click this link: http://gnps.org/

FOR a COLOR TRAIL MAP of STONE MOUNTAIN PARK  including, on Page 2, detail maps of the "Muscogee" and other lesser known trails - click this link: http://www.stonemountainpark.com/-/media/Files/HFE/SMP_COM/Maps/Trails/Stone-Mountain-Park-Hiking-Trails.ashx

DIRECTIONS for FREE PARK ENTRANCE and special "MUSCOGEE TRAIL" PARKING LOT for this event:  Click on the square blue & green "Event Location" icon near the top of this article if you'd like to see a zoomable map/ satellite view of the correct parking lot and precise meetup spot.  CAUTION! It's inside the Park but about 2 miles east of the Confederate Hall lot where most AOC hikes begin.  GPS Users can enter the following Lat/Lon coordinates as your destination address:  33.819,-84.140

The following Directions assume that you may be driving through "SPAGHETTI JCN" in NE ATLANTA.  Adapt as necessary depending on the part of town you're coming from.

1.  From "Spaghetti Junction"  (the I-285/I-85 interchange in NE Atlanta) take "I-285 East"  (actually southward - toward “Augusta”) about  4.7 miles.
2.  Take I-285 Exit #39B (bearing Right off I-285 in a clockwise loop).  Merge onto Stone Mountain Pkwy/ US-78 East (toward Snellville/Athens), and go about 8 miles.
3.  When you see the large sign for Stone Mountain Park get off the Parkway toward your right at Exit #8 and bear Right to the Main Park Entrance Gate,  
4.  Tell the Gate Attendant that you're there for the GA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY volunteer project, with the "Gate Code SG-05" - which should suffice as the Park's required data for waiving the usual $15-per-day parking fee (if you don't have a valid annual pass).
5.  After you drive through the Gate go just 0.4 mile into the Park via Jeff Davis Drive and turn Right onto the narrow road that's just beyond the first bridge over the lake.  That road is likely still unpaved.  A few yards ahead park in the small parking lot for the Muscogee Trail where we'll initially meet for the hike.
6.  After the hike we'll caravan 1.7 miles westward to the large parking lot on the right side of Robt. E. Lee Blvd adjoining the GNPS propagation garden (0.2 mile east of the West park gate). You GPS Users can enter the following Lat/Lon coordinates as your destination address for this 2nd meetup spot and garden gate:  33.8132,-84.1588

FREE EVENT, with waiver of Stone Mtn Park daily $15 parking fee for those who don't have an annual Park pass.