It was damp and cold Saturday morning in the north Georgia mountains, with occasional showers of tiny snow flakes, but there were still three of us who were either hardy or foolish enough to get together for the December "Second Saturday" wilderness climb.
We met at the Waffle House restaurant at the north end of Georgia 400, at the intersection with Georgia 60 near Dahlonega. Our waitress had a nametag that identified her as "Suzie Q" and she exhorted us to "Eat all your breakfast, boys, 'cause breakfast is the most important dinner y'all can eat every day."
We didn't have the heart to tell her that the word "dinner" should not be used to describe early morning meals that involve waffles, eggs, saugage and bacon.
The three of us -- me, Joe Maher and Tim Kovar -- then headed north another 20 miles in Joe's pickup truck to a small backcountry lake about two miles down a dirt forest service road. There was nobody else around the lake, and the lakeside campground was empty and closed for the season. We soon were hiking north along a 3.9-mile approach trail to the Appalachian Trail between Woody Gap and Blood Mountain. A whitewater stream beside and below the trail provided the only background noise.
While we hiked, Tim described his recent trip to climb coastal redwoods and Douglas firs in the Pacific Northwest.
We finally found a yellow pine that Joe had described as "a tree with character" from a previous climb, but we decided instead to hike on up to a nearby north-south ridgeline that offered a fantastic view of several hundred square miles of unspoiled wilderness. It was an extremely difficult climb on about a 45 degree incline but we soon found a pair of mature chestnut oaks that were about 30 feet apart and about 25 yards below the ridgeline.
They were definitely not the tallest trees in the area -- some that we'd passed on the hike were well above 100 feet tall -- but the views from their canopies were great.
Tim and I climbed SRT in the more southern of the two oaks, while Joe slowly worked his way up to about 60 feet in the other tree with a DRT system. Tim, even though he broke his throwline twice, managed to set up a short zipline between the two trees and eventually completed a traverse from about 60 feet in the southern tree to about 50 feet in the northern tree.
Brief snowshowers came and went several times during the climb, but the ground and folliage were too damp and warm for anything to stick for more than a few seconds.
The hardest part of the day came when we left the trees and headed back down the steep, wet slope toward the trail. All of us ended up on our butts, sliding down the slope with full packs of climbing gear on our backs.
There will not be a "Second Saturday" wilderness climb in January, due to the second annual Rainforest Expedition to Isla Colon in the Republic of Panama that will run from Jan. 10 to Jan. 21. Plans for a wilderness climb on the second Saturday in February will be announced at a later date.
