WILDFLOWER ADVENTURE - Friday March 25

DAY 3

This is the third day of our wildflower adventure extravaganza and I can’t wait to get to it.  Marguerite’s phone thinks we’re still in Georgia so her alarm rings an hour early.  I let her and Don sleep while I take some pictures outside our little apartment. 

Sunrise in the Woods Behind Our Apartment

Red Buckeye

 Nice lichens and moss grow on the trees.

After breakfast I jump and clap my hands in excitement because we are headed for the Shirley Miller Wildflower Trail.  Remember my mentioning Hugh and Carol Nourse’s book called “Favorite Wildflower Walks in Georgia?”  Well, this is Number One in the book.

Our host at the Laurel Mountain Inn, Sarah, gives us shortcut directions to get there.  We get to Hog Jowl Road (yep) and then turn onto Pocket Road, which becomes gravel.  Nothing like the gravel road I experienced with Helen this same month where I thought my loyal old Toyota would need Hospice.   

When we get to a wide and deep puddle (pond, almost) in the road, Don makes a car-saving decision to park in front of it.  I had obtained a free parking license to use at Wildlife Management Areas — free to old folks like me.  We put this on the dashboard and reconnoiter.

I do not want to start the day by getting my socks wet so I move some rocks to make a way to cross the stream.  I manage to scratch my arm on brambles; blood is running down past my wrist.  But wait, I have my trusty bandanna around my neck.  Tessa Ftorek (a certified Maine guide) taught me and Roseann on a Road Scholar week, “Hiking the Bold Coast,” that having a bandana can be a life saver.  You can wrap it around wounds, clean dirty hands, wear it on your head to keep you warm, fold it and use it as a sweat band.  This time I staunch the blood.

After leaping over the stream, I eagerly race to the trail, leaving Marguerite and Don in the dust (or mud).   Do I think the flowers will disappear before I get there?   

Because this place is full of many types of flowers, thousands come to admire and photograph them.  For the sake of these rare and unusual beauties, “they” built a boardwalk for us big foots. 

It makes walking easier but I did have to lie down and stretch out my arms to get the camera closer to some flowers.

Blue Cohash, I think

Beautiful bluebells start pink

Broadleaf Toothwort

Canadian White Violet

Celandine Poppy

Fernleaf Phacelia

Decumbent Trilliums

Close-Up of Decumbent Trillium

Ivory and White Trilliums Back Lit

White Trillium Sex Bits

 Imagine this view of poppies and bluebells with 29 (just guessing) other varieties growing next to each other.  That is what we saw. 

Immature Foam Flower (see below)

Foam Flower at Base of a Tree

Foam Flower Close-Up

We also saw many ferns and fiddleheads.

Wild Geranium

Woodland Phlox

Don and Marguerite Stunned by the Profusion

Why is this place so exceptional?  Because it’s in a cove with a slope of Pigeon Mountain on one side and the Pocket Branch (like a stream) on the other.  The soil is rich in limestone so the chemistry is neutral rather than the acidic soil we have in the Piedmont.  Different chemistry yields a different set of flowers.  It must be wonderful to live nearby and come several times a week.  I speak to one such fellow who says every time he comes, different species are blooming.

When we reach the end of the boardwalk, we take a slightly more challenging walk toward the Pocket Waterfall.  Here, I can get my $30 close-up lens a few inches from the flowers.  Some young people are playing see-saw with two large trees.

Rue Anemone

Jack-In-The-Pulpit

Sharp-Lobed Hepatica and Geranium Leaves (with Trout Lily off to the Left)

Star Chickweed

Stonecrop and Moss

Stonecrop Getting Ready to Flower

Don Arrived at the Waterfall

Stonefly

Miterwort or Bishop’s Cap

Don't Know What This Pretty Thing Is

Yellow Violet with Lots of Other Plants Nearby

Pocket Waterfall

Hunger pangs speak to us (which seems incredible considering the huge breakfast we had).  As we head toward the car, we pass many people just arriving.  I wonder how crowded it will be tomorrow (Saturday) when the Georgia Botanical Society people arrive. 

LUNCH

 

Marguerite and Don Pointing to the Welcome Bear

 Are we in Texas?  Grass-Fed Beef signs; customers with cowboy hats.   Naturally I order a hamburger:  delicious!   I also buy a reference book called “Wild Flowers of Pigeon Mountain,” by Jay Clark.  It will help me identify flowers we are seeing on this four-day adventure.  

 

[Did you mistakenly think I knew the names of these flowers from my memory bank?  Hah!  Remember, I am coming on 75 years old and had four concussions so I have a lot of those astronomically-popular black holes in my brain.  I spend hours looking at reference books and, when needed, checking with experts.  Sometimes my pictures don’t show the right stuff like leaves plus I don’t want to abuse these wonderful people so I end up guessing, too.  Sometimes incorrectly.]

 

Where to next?  We decide to try #3 in my book:  Keown Falls Trail, in the Chattahoochee National Forest.  Hugh and Carol describe it as a 1.8 mile loop of moderate difficulty with elevation gain of 415 feet.  We head toward Villanow then east on GA 1356, turning right onto Pocket Road.  This is a different Pocket from the Pocket we just left on the other side of Lafayette.  Locals pronounce it La-FAY-it.   

The bathroom is quite nice.

 

 The beginning of the trail is odd, defined by small rocks and filled with inches of gravel.  I see a tired, sunburned, and sweaty hiker heading toward us.  He staggers to a bench and sits. 

When I ask him what he’s been up to, he explains he’s traveled 250 miles so far on the Pinhoti Trail.  Yikes! 

 

Two younger hikers coming toward us suggest we stay to the right going up and come down the same way.  The left side is muddy, slippery and hazardous, they warn.   

 

Marguerite wisely decides to rest on a rock by the sweetly singing stream. 

Don uses his poles to ford a stream.  I can jump using the broad rocks.  I sprayed my hiking boots with waterproof stuff before I went to Hawaii so I’m okay about slipping into the water.

The trail has so many switch backs my phone’s Map-My-Trail app goes a little crazy. 

On the way up we see some flowers and butterflies.

White Bluets

Duskywing

Bouquet of Furry Fiddleheads

Another Kind of Fern Growing on a Boulder

The view near the top is quite beautiful.

As we approach the falls, there are massive rocks which are supposed to be steps.  Maybe if you are seven feet tall and have legs two feet longer than mine!  Since the hill or mountain is on our left and yet more boulders are on the right, the “steps” are also narrow.  I am a tiny bit scared.

But we persist because we can hear the waterfall.  Unlike so many I have seen in recent months, this is skinny, not rain gorged.  But the nifty thing is I can walk behind it.  I play with the ISO setting on my point-and-shoot and catch individual drops falling in front of me.

I am behind the Keown Falls here.

Isn't this neat?

 Coming down is scarier than going up.  I sit down once or twice to descend safely.  If I try to walk down these very high rock “steps” and don’t land steadily, I could fall forward: either down more rocks or down the large hill.  I have too many other adventures to experience this year to get injured in March.

Yet more pretty plants and creatures to see on the trip down.

Toothwort

Tiger Swallowtail on Trailing Arbutus

Sweetshrub

We join relaxed Marguerite, use the marvelous bathroom again, and head toward Mentone.  This is our last night up here.   We can rejoice in our adventures so we decide to bring a light dinner back to our apartment, enjoying it with a bottle of Guinness. 

Tomorrow we will go on another trail before heading home.  I wonder which one…