Hike Georgia In My Backyard...Sawnee Mountain Preserve

It was Thursday and I cheated. No, nothing extreme, I went out today with my Thursday Hike Georgia group, but I selfishly scheduled the hike close to home at Sawnee Mountain Preserve. The reason, I have been out of town for the last five days as I was in Jacksonville, FL (I will be posting more about this trip in the next few days) as my Dad had surgery at the Mayo Clinic (he is doing well). Anyway, because I knew that I would be at the hospital all day Tuesday (had to get up at 4 am) and drive 400+ miles on Wednesday I wanted a hike that was close to home, so since I was putting it up I decided on Little Sawnee.
The funny thing is when I was putting up this hike Monday night sitting on my bed at the Navy Lodge I never thought it would get too many responses, it was short notice after all. But to my suprise the hike had the most people every to sign up for one of our Thursday outings with 21 people, that was cool. Still, you never know how many would show, but we had 15 hikers which is really good, but we picked up three others who just asked to go out with us.

Arriving at...

...the visitor center.

We hiked up the steeper part of the Indian Seats Trail and did a figure-eight loop using the Yucca Trail. This added about 0.6 miles and made the hike around 4.25 miles (it would have been 4.5 if we had done the Eaglet).

The front pack...

...& the back one.

John G. set a blistering pace.

Indian Seats Trail.

We weren't the only group on the mountain.

One of the first points of interests was the upper Gold Mine. We then stopped for a break at the Indian Seats. While it was cloudy it was still a nice view today from the seats.

No cat in the upper Gold Mine.

Panorama from...

The Indian Seats.

The Indian Seats vista.

Looked like a fire?

One more look.

Most of the group.

After a break we headed down where I showed the group the spot where one can see Atlanta and Stone Mountain. We then cut back across the Yucca and headed down the Indian Seats and looped past the Tribble Gap lot, the lower Gold Mine and back to the visitor center. Everyone seemed to enjoy Sawnee Mountain Preserve or a hike in my backyard.

Atlanta.

Stone Mountain.

Back on the trail.

The Yucca Trail.

The Hampton Herman Mine.

Indian Seats on the way to the visitor center.

One last look at Mt. Oglethorpe.