I left this past Monday morning early and headed north to the Appalachian mountains and camped at Stone mountain state park...I've never really spent any significant time at that park before, but the national park I wanted to camp was closed due to covid19...The national park is more wild and untamed compared to this state park I stayed at and the campsites were more commercialized at the state park and cost more...
Anyway I reserved a campsite for the entire week, I wasn't going to return until today but the weather changed and rains started coming in daily by Wednesday afternoon so I packed up and went home early...
Monday morning arriving at Stone mountain state park I set up camp and went hiking straight away with my dog...The first couple pictures below are of Stone mountain itself, the center attraction to the park, taken from a main trail at ground level...I also took a couple pictures of Stone mountain from the side of another mountain nearby later that day in the second picture, also from a hiking trail...
There's a more strenuous trail on the other side of the mountain for climbers to traverse up that mountain but I didn't hike that trail on this trip since I didn't bring my safety gear for such type hiking...I don't have climbing gear per say but I have harnesses and safety ropes and for myself and my dog when hiking narrow paths high up and keep my dog tethered to me on more dangerous paths...So we stayed off the strenuous trails this time...
The third and fourth image below we are near a cliff side viewing Stone mountain between those trees but we didn't walk over near it because I didn't have the safety gear...
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We hiked an average of 8 miles a day I'm guessing Monday through Wednesday, near some other cliff sides and following streams and rivers closer to ground level but with many waterfalls everywhere along the way...One trail was over t miles and I didn't know it at the time but the end of the trail or the beginning, depending on which end one started hiking, there were 500 feet of steps going up the side of the mountain beside a waterfall...Those steps about killed us lol, after hiking alomst 5 miles both my dog and myself had to stop so many times going up those steps to rest lol...We had a choice, turn around and go back almost 5 miles or walk 500 feet of steps, in hindsight I think I would have turned around, those steps were exhausting...
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Also found out how much my dog loves to swim in those rivers lol, it was ice cold water and crystal clear...I waded in with him to cool off too, there are some deeper parts of those rivers, I fell in one deep spot whilst walking through 2 feet of the rapid waters lol...My dog was diving in the deep ends too, he had a blast in the water...
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I should have made a video of him playing in the river, he was barking at the rapids and splashing lol, he had so much fun swimming...
Also Came across some oddities whilst hiking, a bent wood tree (isn't there a forest where all the trees are like this somewhere?)...
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Also came across fireplaces in the middle of nowhere, I assume a settler' s house once stood at those spots, I didn't see any stairs leading to nowhere though...lol
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All in all it was a great trip even though it was shortened because of the weather...I plan to go back and see other areas of the park maybe next month, there was much more to see but too much rain came in the area to stay longer, my campsite was getting too wet and it wouldn't have been as enjoyable if we stayed and tried to fight to stay dry...
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