Cowback Mountain Hike

After literally years of thinking about it, I finally decided I'd take advantage of some great hiking in my "backyard". Half inspired by numerous hikes in Yosemite last spring and half inspired to find another way to get outside exercise, I bought a nice guidebook to hiking in North Georgia. There we lots of good suggestions in the book with many hikes within 2 hours of my house.


I picked the Cowback Mountain from Hogpen Gap hike because it was relatively close, 2 hours long and moderately difficult. I had originally intended to go the previous weekend but scuttled that plan at the last minute when forecast called for showers, cold and wind. Although I had the gear to handle the inclement weather, I didn't want to start off with a hike that would keep me from doing it again. This weekend the weather was perfect with highs in the mid 60s, a nice cool breeze and mostly sunny skies.


I loaded up the iPod with music and hit the road "early" Sunday. The directions in the book were great and I had no trouble finding the trail head. Overall the hike was 3.6 miles long and took about 2 1/2 hours round trip. Although from end to end it was only a 800 foot climb, numerous ups and downs made for a challenging hike. To my surprise there were numerous other people on the trail. I ran into about a dozen other hikers ranging from day hikers like myself to ones who'd been on the trail for weeks. The hike on was just one small section of the Appalachian Trail that stretches from Georgia to Maine.


I took a couple pictures along the route. The first offers a view of my destination.



The second is a view from atop the mountain. I was delighted to see a cairn (rock pile) upon my arrival at the top since they'd been such a prominent feature on my Iceland trip.

Pictures were a little bland because most of the area is just starting to bloom. All in all I'd have to consider the hike a success and I'll certainly be headed out for more soon. My biggest surprise from this trip was the sunburn I received on the ride home with top down.

Master Bathroom - Complete

The work has been done for a couple weeks. Just now getting around to uploading the final picture. The project took a great deal of time, mostly because the multiple layers of wallpaper were a bit of a pain. I learned a bunch, mostly that I need to be patient when removing wallpaper. Although I've spend hours cleaning up drywall dust, there is still more grit to remove. I'm pausing a bit to tackle other tasks before beginning similar work on Crimson's bathroom.