Week of mapping - Report #2

Hurricane Ida interrupted my week of mapping. Two inches of rain fell in one day.

From Chattahoochee Bend

This put a serious crimp in my field checking. I stayed home the day that it rained. Then went out on the tail-end of the rain the next day only to find it too deep for my boots - and the water was flowing instead of standing still. I took the next day off and went to do trail maintenance on the AT at Hawk Mt. Went out the next day only to discover that the flood crest from Atlanta had just reached the park. You can see the wet areas on the tree trunks where it is falling.

From Chattahoochee Bend

I worked around the edges of the flood as best I could for the next two days. Finally the water went down far enough that I could get back out there, and in one long marathon day I finished the rest of the floodplain.

Here's the river, back within it's banks:

From Chattahoochee Bend

An armadillo that didn't survive the flood:

From Chattahoochee Bend

And an old bus converted into a hunting camp:

From Chattahoochee Bend

Yes, that's a homemade fireplace where the engine should be.

And here is the biggest tree in the northern section of the park - it's probably the biggest tree in the park:

From Chattahoochee Bend

From Chattahoochee Bend

From Chattahoochee Bend

It's on a sandhill just meters from the bank of the river. Too high for Hurricane Ida to reach, but it was flooded in the 500 year flood, and probably many times in the past.

In fact, there was very little real damage from the big flood. Here's a huge raft of trash from Atlanta:

From Chattahoochee Bend

And finally, the early morning fog on the water:

From Chattahoochee Bend