Before I get started I just want to say this blog is mostly
about my travels, or places I eat, stuff like that. So I don’t really get
political, I have a dormant separate blog for that. However, there might be a
little on this blog, this time.
The
reason is my latest day out was on Monday,
Martin Luther King (MLK) Day and I
went to
Stone Mountain.
Deb was off so we wanted to go and do something in the
hiking way, but not to over the top. Because the weather was nice and I have wanted
to go do a hike at
Stone Mountain I suggested this. I will admit it did cross
my mind and Deb’s to about it being
MLK Day. Right here I will just admit I am
no
Confederate sympathizer, far from it. I had a phase in high school when I
was trying to fit in where I bought a Confederate Flag and when I was a
Republican (yeah imagine that) I bought into the argument that the
Civil War
was about States’ Rights. However, I out grew such ideas, so that is why I
decided to go ahead and go because I wasn’t there to honor any Confederate
heroes. The main reason I wanted to go was and hike to the top of the mountain,
but I will admit that I also was curious to see the
Confederate Memorial Carving, the world’s largest
bas-relief sculpture,
that is cut into the northside of the mountain.
is granite rock dome called a
monadnock. It stands 1,686 feet and it
is 5 miles in circumference at its base.
It is an impressive site rising above DeKalb
County.
Since it was a hike, I decided
to get on the
Cherokee Trail, which is the hiking path that traverses the
mountain, at the
Old Grist Mill.
I like
Grist Mills and what is interesting about
this one is that it wasn’t built here. The 100-year-old
Grist Mill was moved
from Ellijay in 1965 to its current location on
Stone Mountain Lake. It is a
nice little mill.
 |
| Entrance to the Nature Garden. |
So we started our hike on the
Cherokee Trail and it was
pretty flat, it did pass a nice rock wall and after it crossed Robert E. Lee Boulevard
we also crossed tracks for the Stone Mountain Railroad. We then came upon a small
Nature Garden. It was established in 1961 by the
Atlanta Branch of the National League of American Pen Women, which is
the nation’s oldest organization for creative women. One of the cool
things is the path is a trail of stones, each one honoring a current or former
member of the group…cool.
At the Nature Garden the Northeast side of the mountain is
clearly visible, so we are getting close. As we went down the trail we came to
a junction where the trail merges with a road and it is here where you come out
into a clearing to get the first look at the massive
bas-relief. As I said before it is an impressive site. For
those who don’t know this carving is a memorial featuring Confederate leaders Generals
Lee,
Stonewall Jackson and President
Jefferson Davis. The carving set 400 feet
off the ground, coves three acres and recesses 42 feet into the mountain.
The
project was started in 1916 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the
first artist commissioned for the project was Gutzon Borglum, who quit the after
a dispute with the Stone Mountain Confederate Monumental Association, he would
go on to do the faces on Mount Rushmore. American sculptor Augustus Lukeman took over the project in 1925 and worked on it until 1928.
It would be thirty years before the project was restated before it was finished
in 1972.
 |
| Closer look at the carving. |
A course one can’t mention the history of the sculpture without
including the Klan. It was at Stone Mountain that the
Ku Klux Klan reformed in
1915, they helped fund the Confederate Memorial and owner of
Stone Mountain,
Samuel Venable
gave the Klan permission with perpetual right to hold celebrations (cross burnings
and such) on the mountain. However, when the
State of Georgia bought the
mountain in 1958 it evicted the Klan and voided
 |
| Confederate War Memorial. |
Venable’s agreement. Still, the
mountain hasn’t fully shaken its legacy with the Klan, but things have changed. Even though there are
two Confederate memorials on either side of the lawn in front of the
bas-relief
I don’t think that the men who wanted to build this monument would ever
envisioned what the mountain would be come.
Today,
Stone Mountain is more theme park than memorial. On
Monday when I was there right in
All of this shows the metamorphosis that the
mountain is going through.
front of the enormous effigy of Lee, Jackson
and Davis was an artificial winter tubing ride called
Snow Mountain. In the
summer the area in front of the carving becomes a
Laser Light Show. Back in
1996 a number of events, archery, track cycling and tennis, in the
Summer Olympics were held around the mountain.
 |
| Looked like the UN. |
This is no more evident than the scene at the
Walk-Up Trail
that goes to the summit. To get there we had to exit the
Cherokee Trail because
of ice that was on the rocky side of the mountain. So, we got on the orange blazed
connecter trail which curved around the mountain to meet up with the
Walk-UpTrail. Here there was a line of five flags with four various varieties used by
the Confederacy during the
Civil War (the other was the U.S. flag which looked slightly
out of place). However, the people going up the mountain looked more like the
United Nations than the Old South.
I observed people of Asian & Middle Eastern decent, and
while a large number were White I would
 |
| Some of the carvings. |
say that there were just as many African
Americans and remember it is
MLK Day. I will say I was slightly surprised; by I
have to say it made me smile. But maybe that was the point, I don’t know
because I didn’t ask, but you have to wonder that to some African Americans
getting to stand on the summit of this memorial to the Confederacy, on
MLK Day,
is not a victory. I can bet you one thing that old Klansmen or Confederates
would be rolling in their graves to see what
Stone Mountain has become, I for
one like it.
 |
| Gum Pole. |
Despite all of this the one thing that remains is the beauty
of
Stone Mountain.
The bas-relief was
something that I wanted to see for myself, but going to the summit was my main
goal. The
Walk-Up Trail is a one mile path that is rock. I have seen plenty of
places where I had rocky parts on the trail, like
Blood Mountain, but this
trail was rock, I guess that is why it is
Stone Mountain. Also, it is mostly a
straight trail, steep with no switchbacks. One of the cool things I found were
these carvings in the
rock, some dating back over a hundred years. There is
another interesting item the Gum Pole, and yes it is what you think people
stick old gum on a pole.
 |
| Summit ahead. |
At the base of the trail the sign warns that if you have
health problems it is probable best you not walk-up to the top. On the way up they
have placed emergency call-boxes and there is the Half-Way Hut, which is a
picnic pavilion, but it is actually more 2/3 the way up. So right up from the
Half-Way Hut one get the first vista of
Atlanta and it is amazing. Right under
this spot was a row of rails, because this part of the trail is pretty steep.
But, you can see the communications tower, so you know the summit is within
site.
Once cresting the top, the summit of
Stone Mountain, the
first thing you notice is the view and wow…it is something else! It is a 360
degree vista with
Atlanta,
Buckhead &
Kennesaw Mountain to the southwest
and west, north is
Dunwoody and
Sawnee Mountain if you look close on this day
the outline of the North Georgia Mountains can be seen.
East of the mountain is Conyers and in the
distance the Oconee National Forest and south of
Stone Mountain are the towns
of Fulton and Henry Counties.
 |
| East vista. |
 |
| South Vista. |
The second thing you notice is how large the summit area is.
It is about a quarter-mile in length where besides the view you will find viewing
stands, cool rainwater pools, a transmitting tower, U.S.
Geological Marker and the
Summit Skyride Pavilion. The Skyride, is the Swiss built cable car that goes to the
top, but it cost $9 bucks. Besides the docking area the Pavilion has a gift
shop, snack bar and bathrooms. I have read that from the
Summit Skyride you get a
close up
look at the
bas-relief which I might have to try sometime. However
you chose to go to the summit I suggest you do, it is worth the effort.
 |
| U.S. Geological Marker. |
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| Rainwater Pool. |
As always with any straight trail the hike back down is not
that bad. Since Deb was getting tired we decided to hike the shorter route,
which is back the way we came. We did get to see the
bas-relief sculptor one
more time. It was nice to see the changes that have happened at a place with
the history of
Stone Mountain. So, I will say all in all it was a good
MLK Day.
For more pictures check out my
Facebook link.
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