north Georgia mountains - ilivetotravel's travel log

How Can You See Atlanta’s Carpet of Green? Pine Mountain!

Atlanta is known for its crazy traffic and challenging airport. But it is also known for the carpet of green that covers the city far and wide. A week ago (or so), I was looking for a new hike not too far from the city and new to me. Thankfully, we are not lacking for good hikes within 30 mins of the city (and if you expand that to 1.5 hrs, the possibilities are endless it seems!).

I opted to go north on I-75 to climb Pine Mountain in Cartersville. The 4.6 round-trip hike was of moderate difficulty and not heavily trafficked. When I arrived around 9:45 AM, the small parking lot of Main St. (not even a quarter mile from I-75) was pretty full.

The trail has a West Loop and an East Loop connected by a pass where the summit is found. We hiked the southern end of both loops and the returned via the northern loops. It was beautiful terrain and, with trees still not fully covered with leaves, one could see much further around which is one of the things I enjoy about hiking in colder weather.

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Trail Map

What I enjoyed about this hike, beyond its accessibility for this city dweller was that it offered a great view of the carpet of green that is the greater Atlanta metro area. In the distance I could see the faint skyline of downtown, Midtown, Buckhead and Sandy Springs with Lake Allatoona in the foreground. I have to say, this was a neat hike easily fitting in a half day. I leave you with pictures from the hike and the view though the skyline is too small for it to show well on the photos so may not even see in these photos. Beware: a lot that looks like just green forests actually hides neighborhood after neighborhood in greater Atlanta!

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The double hump mountain is Kennesaw Mountain, a famous Civil War battlefield

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Of course, the highway (I-75) is not too far away!

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Lake Allatoona

A Fall Outing that Helps Keep the Doctor Away?

Fall is here and it is time for lots of good things: cooler temperatures, awesome colors of the trees as they move to winter “mode”, and apple picking!

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Beautiful day and beautiful apples

I was invited by friend to join them in taking their young daughters for a fun outing of apple picking about an hour or so north of Atlanta in the north Georgia mountains at Hillcrest Orchards. This is something I was highly unlikely to ever put on my quite-full to-do or want-to-do list but the opportunity to be with friends and see the kids do something like this was something I did not want to miss.

I have no mind for types of plants or fruits. I know an apple is an apple but if you put three different apples in front of me, I’d be hard pressed to tell you if they are this or that. So that’s my way of saying don’t ask me what types I saw or which was my favorite 🙂 It will also explain why no photo caption will say anything more specific than “apples.”

An apple… or an apple cam??!!

The girls had a lot of fun going around the multiple aisles of different kinds of apples and picking them from the tree (not the ground!).

A busy little picker, being picky about her apples

They left with greatly loaded bags, too heavy for them to carry. But the important part is they had fun! And so did we watching them enjoy themselves though I may also add the beautiful day up in the north Georgia mountains was quite enjoyable.