The Southwest Corner

From Chattahoochee Bend

There it is - the far southwest corner. I will probably be the only orienteer ever to visit this spot - and I'll probably never go back.

Error of Closure

The Heard County 100 acres, for which I have no basemap, was an interesting challenge. A few genreations ago, surveyors would have used a plane table to map this area. Basically a flat board and a heavy wooden tripod, it also had a large compass rose and rotating arm used to take bearings. The whole contraption would be carried out into the field and set up at a point of interest, with the plane table leveled and oriented to north. Then bearings would be taken to other points and the distance measured with chains. What a lot of work!

Essentially I am using a simplified plane table. My map board is the table, with the basemap sandwich of materials taped to it, along with a baseplate compass. When I want to add something, I level the board, orient it to north, use my ruler to sight to the next point, and either pace the distance or use my laser rangefinder. So it's the same technique, just simplified, lighter, and considerably more mobile.

In the Heard County 100 I first mapped the linear features, then filled in the point features, building everything gradually using what I had already done. The southernmost stream ran across the map for about 600 meters before emptying into the river. No hint of it on my blank basemap, of course, so I used my simple plane table to take bearings along the stream and pace it off. By the time I got to the river I was 10 meters too far. That's what they call the "error of closure". Imagine mapping a fence that encircles a field. How far off are you when you get back to where you started? That's the error of closure. 10 meters over 600 meters is pretty good.

I didn't do nearly as well with the contours. One part of the Heard 100 is a gently sloping hill. The contours are 100 meters apart! I could draw them in any direction and it would look correct. The easiest way is to draw an imaginary line down the spurs and the bottom of the reentrants to get a direction, then imagine a level line where the contour goes. But if there are no spurs or reentrants I have a problem.

Well, the orienteers will be more than willing to tell me how well I did, usually as soon as they finish their course while they are still hot and bothered. Probably only the upper-level runners will every see the Heard 100, which is probably a good thing.

Christmas 2010 update

From Chattahoochee Bend

I've been hard at work, closing in on the final bits. My main problem is the very long walk to get to the final SW corner of the map. I have succeeded once in getting entry to drive around from the construction company. It's very hit and miss in late December. The walk in is about 3 miles. The walk out is 3 miles. Plus the one-mile-an-hour mapping amble that I do. That makes for a very long day.

Here's the progress map. As you can see, only the 100 acres in Heard County in the far SW corner are left:

From Chattahoochee Bend

I have no base map for those 100 acres, so I will have to resort to the old fashioned methods. It will take a couple of days at least, maybe more. Map the linear features first using compass and pacing, then fill in the details. It's not fast, and I wouldn't want to do a large area this way, but it does work.

Estimated time of finish? New Year's day 2011.

Armadillos

From Chattahoochee Bend

I surprised him (her? how do you tell?) rooting around in the leaves. He scurried into his hole. I waited, getting my camera ready. They have very poor eyesight - I probably looked like a tree standing there. He poked his head back out and I took his picture.

I've been seeing a lot of them lately. My theory, which may be totally bogus, is that it's too cold at night for them to forage, so they have been coming out when the temperature warms up in the afternoon. It was probably 50 degrees when I took that picture.

How Much Longer?

From Chattahoochee Bend

The Visitor Center is finished!

If nothing interferes, I hope to "finish" the map before the New Year. I put "finish" in quotes because I am going to finish before the construction is finished. I will have to update the campground and the rest of the park road when they are done. Also the hiking trail currently under construction by the Friends of the Park. The park is supposed to open in the summer of 2011.

Another Week of Field Checking

Took advantage of a vacation week to get in 5 straight days of field checking and one day of drafting. What a week! I'm exhausted. Let's see if I can remember what happened.

Day 1: Finished the marshes on the west map, see previous blog post.
Day 2: Mapped all the low hills between the new road and the marshes, out as far as the campground.
Day 3: Mapped the strip of land between the new road and the big power line, finishing this base map page. This narrow area had to be mapped, of course. Who knows if it will ever be used for any real orienteering.
Day 4: Started the final base map page. This is the area that extends south past the campground along the river. I walked all the way out there, then followed the boundary around, then walked all the way back. By my calculation, a distance of 14 km. I vowed never to do that again, and when I got home I phoned a contact I had with the construction company and got permission to drive out there.
Day 5: Drove out just short of the campground and parked, then mapped in the new area. For the first time I got behind the gate and drove on the new park road. What fun!. But the logging roads are terrible, even for my pickup truck. Very afraid of getting stuck, but managed to get out there and back OK.
Day 6: Collapsed in front of the computer and caught up on the drafting.

Have rubber boots, will wade

From Chattahoochee Bend

I should be done with the marshes now, at least until I get out past the campground. I spent the day wading with my rubber boots on. I had left blank spots on the map where every marsh was in this area, saving them all up so I could wade through them all at once, discovering all their secrets. What did I find? More of the straight ditches. Someone, long ago, tried to drain these marshes. I hate to mention it, but it could have been slaves - you always have to bear that in mind in this area. I don't know for sure.

The attempts to drain it didn't work well, and when everything was abandoned the beaver took everything back. They are farming it now, and doing an excellent job at keeping it wet.

The hills crowd back in on the river now, so I will be back in the low hills at least until I get past the campground and picnic area. Saw some evidence yesterday that heavy equipment is moving in that direction, using the old logging roads to get around the bridge construction. Probably pouring concrete culvert footings. I will work around the last of the construction and finish this area up soon.

Mired in the Marsh

From Chattahoochee Bend

I have spent the last few trips down in the floodplain picking away at the marshes and flat areas. One more trip down there and the biggest wet areas should be done - I need to take my rubber boots and capture all the details of the marshes.

They are very beautiful, in a cold, wet, muddy sort of beauty. I imagine the snapping turtles and beavers are very happy with them. Orienteers, not so much. The difficulty will be in getting around them. They flow west or northwest, at an angle to the river, and block access to the sand hills on the river edge, so good course planning will place them in the way of the legs so that they have to be navigated around somehow - or crossed for the adventurous.

I've posted a bunch more pictures also. Found an impressive Osage Orange tree (or Bodark) down on the banks of the river. Unrecognizable usually, but this time of year the "oranges" are very visible, looking like someone scattered a bucket of green tennis balls on the ground. Don't eat them!

The big question is - when will I finish the map? Once these marshes are done I will climb back into the hills and work my way out past the picnic area. Then the map turns south along the bank of the river. I have never even been down there, so I can only guess that it is more of the same. It's a small area compared to what I have already done. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that, at the very southern tip, it crosses into Heard County. I have no basemap for that area.  Uh oh.

I plan to take a week's vacation before Christmas and should get in a few more days then. And I will probably spend most of the time between Christmas and New Year's mapping, hoping to finish the whole thing before 2011. Of course, it won;t be "finished". The construction is still ongoing, and I will finish the map before the construction is finished. I'll have to make "updates" as they finish up the campground and picnic areas, as well as the trail construction.

Heading for a picnic

I started a new page of the basemap, a very large page, about twice as large as normal. It extends all the way out to the day-use area, also known as the picnic area. The first task, as usual, is to fix down the new road, so I followed it all the way out, penciling it in as I went. Here's what the picnic shelters look like:

From Chattahoochee Bend

This area of the map will finish all man made objects. It extends from the maintenance building, past the campground and the second residence to the picnic area, boat ramp, and primitive camping. This is going to take a while to finish, but once that is done, I will turn south along the river for the final part of the map.

Another milestone reached

From Chattahoochee Bend

A totally arbitrary one, but significant anyway. I finished everything from Flat Rock road west to the northward jog in the boundary line, south of the big power line. That is a 2 sq km chunk of the West map, which means I am about half done with the West map.

This is the heart of the developed area of the park, and is the area that people drive through when they arrive. It includes the Visitor Center, Adirondack Camp, one of the ranger residences, and the maintenance building. Also 2 small trailhead parking areas.
It also has about a third of the rock in the park. The rest of the rock was in the east map, already finished. Which means I am done with rock now, except for the occasional spot here and there.

The rest of the West map includes the campground and picnic area - that will be next.

I can also report an unsubstantiated rumor that the observation platform up in the bend of the river will be built in phase one construction, and the road will be improved so that people can get to it. This is good, since we hope to use that area for parking for our orienteering meets up in the bend. Much more on that later...

I've been keeping up with the road construction, mapping it about as fast as they construct it. It is paved now as far as the visitor center and the gravel has been laid in preparation for asphalt as far as the Maintenance Building.

The next section of the west map descends to the river, back in the floodplain. At one point the floodplain is 400 meters wide - yikes! Wish me luck down in there...

A break from the heat

Finally, the temperature dropped 20 degrees, which put the high in the low 70s. I put in a long 9 hours, the longest day since last Spring. Managed to finish another page of the base map.

From Chattahoochee Bend

This may be the largest beech tree in the park, roughly 10 feet around, which would make it about 36 inches in diameter. It's down in a beech bottom west of the Adirondack Camp. And no, I did not put it on the map...

The heat continues

From Chattahoochee Bend

A month of 90 degree days. What a difference from last year, when we got 10 inches of rain and the river flooded. Worked in the area north of the visitor center. There is a long swamp in the bottom of a forked reentrant that has to done - it leads all the way to the big power line and eventually out to the river, but that part is already mapped.

Actually found two bare rock areas today. They were covered with grass for the most part. What are they doing this far west? But it's nice to have them on the map for some variety.

Park road gets asphalt

From Chattahoochee Bend

The first layer of asphalt is down on the new park road, at least as far as the visitor center. Looks good. Of course, there is still a lot of road to be constructed before it gets all the way out to the picnic area and the boat ramp.

From Chattahoochee Bend

I worked west of the visitor center today and once again got confused by the old logging roads. If only I had a map! Oh wait, I'm making the map. They never go where I think they are going to go, and new ones keep appearing out of nowhere. All secrets will be revealed soon. Hopefully it will be a challenging area for some orienteers even with the map.

Beautyberry

Fall means the weeds are blooming. Spent the morning in the thinned pine forest northeast of the visitor center. There were workers out on the new park road putting out landscape netting and grass seed on the banks. They had salsa music blaring from their truck radio - the sound really carries!

Here's the weed of the day - beautyberry:

From Chattahoochee Bend

Starting a new page

It's mildly exciting to start a new page of the basemap - in a long project like this any sign of progress is encouraging. I did as much as I could above the big powerline north o the maintenance building, so this new page is west of the visitor center out to the maintenance building. The first step is to map out the new road. At this point I just map the edge of the clear cut. I also found the new powerline. It cuts south from the big powerline and swings around south of the Adirondack camp on it's way to the visitor center.

Compare these two photos of the visitor center:

From Chattahoochee Bend

From Chattahoochee Bend

Looks like they are making some progress!

Meeting with DNR

A small portion of the brain trust of GAOC gathered together at the under-construction park for a meeting with our contacts from the Department of Natural Resources. We got an update on the construction and a tentative OK to begin planning an A meet at the park sometime in 2012 (hopefully the map will be done by then...). The meeting was great and we learned a lot. Bottom line - it looks like we will have an A meet at Chat Bend in 2012. I know that's a long way off but we have to plan way in advance.

After the meeting we had a walkabout and I showed Steve, Charlie, and Laurie some of the highlights of the park.

From Chattahoochee Bend

A Week of Mapping

I took another of those working vacations last week and managed to map 7 days out of 10 before the 4th of July holiday. Lots more pictures on the photo page. I worked the area west of Flat Rock Road out to the under-construction visitor center, which is about a kilometer away. I worked north to the powerline and the logging road that is being used for access by the construction crews. The new park road bisects this area.

Lots of boulders and bare rock in a continuation of the band from east of Flat Rock Road. It runs out to the southwest, of course, just like before.

From Chattahoochee Bend

An advantage of being out there during the week, instead of on the weekends like usual, was that I was able to see some of the construction on the new park road. I peeked out from the trees, of course - I don't think anyone ever saw me. I have permission to be there, but I did not want to disturb anyone or get in the way. Here's a concrete pumper getting ready to pour a footing for a culvert:

From Chattahoochee Bend

Very interesting to see. One day that swath of destruction will be a beautiful park entrance road.

The next area I will work will be north of the park construction, down in the floodplain. Maybe things will go a little faster without the ever-present rock to contend with.

Yellowjackets: 5 - Mapper: 0

That's one of the hazards of mapping in the summer, the yellowjackets. They build their hive in stump hollows in the ground. The slightest disturbance and they aggressively defend their home. Grab a sapling for balance, trip on a root, or step on a wobbly rock that is near the entrance to their burrow and they come boiling out. I've heard that they give a warning butt to the intruder, but there are so many deerflies and horseflies and who knows what else buzzing around that i would never notice it. Then the stinging starts. My reaction is to run, heart pounding and adrenalin pumping. I'd like to shake the hand of the man that could stand still or play dead in the face of yellowjackets.

I got stung five times, on each leg, each arm, and the side of my head. Nothing to do but accept that is going to hurt and suck it up. I think it's better to keep moving than to sit down and cry about it. But I am not allergic to bee stings.

I finally mapped the boulders that are the banner image for the web site. I first photographed them over a year ago, on my very first recon trip to the park. Have they changed any?

From Chattahoochee Bend

Cicadas Sing at 9:45

All is quiet, at least from the cicadas, at seven, and eight, and even nine. But at 9:45 they burst out with their incessant singing. I'm no expert, but it must be the temperature. They sing in the day, they sing in the night, so it can't be the light. Once the temperature gets up to about 80, they sing out, and don't stop until it cools off late at night. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Mapped more of the area around the high point today. Lots of little bare rock areas and boulders. It should be interesting terrain for orienteering. I also found a hollowed out spot on the top of a rock that looks suspiciously human made. A grinding stone?

From Chattahoochee Bend

Lots of dead tress in this area, still standing. Why? I have no idea, unless it's the shallow soil above the granite outcropping.

From Chattahoochee Bend

I only do half days in this heat - more tomorrow.

High Point

I mapped the highest point on the map today. How high is it, you ask? Twenty-nine three meter contours above the river. That's about 280 feet. Sounds like a lot, but it's not, since the climb is spread over 2.5 kilometers. The new park road circles around to the east and north of the high point. A very nice oak and hickory forest covers this hill, and it's dotted with bare rock and boulders.

And at it's foot, a very wet beech bottom:

From Chattahoochee Bend

From Chattahoochee Bend

Twin Raccoons

Down in a stream bed west of Flat Rock Road I surprised twin raccoons playing and romping. What they were actually doing was hunting for slimy, scaly, creepy, and crawly things to eat, and then squabbling over them. But they were cute anyway. It was very dark down in that hole, but you can see their ring tails in this photo:

From Chattahoochee Bend

Anytime you see raccoons or foxes in the daytime in the hot summer, your first thought should be rabies. But even though they didn't notice me quickly, I think they were just adolescents. I also surprised a spotted fawn, but it bounded away when I almost stepped on it - no picture.

I worked the area just west of Flat Rock Road, the southern boundary leading down to the new Visitor Center. Lots of boulders and bare rock areas here. This will probably be well used orienteering terrain in the future, since there will be parking nearby.

From Chattahoochee Bend

Back in the Saddle Again

I took April and May off. It was a year ago that I started field checking, so today I started on the west, and final, section of the map. Just recon today, it was too wet to actually make pencil marks on paper.

The west map is where all the park construction is taking place. Lots of construction photos on the photo page - here's the visitor center:

From Chattahoochee Bend

And the restroom at the day-use area:

From Chattahoochee Bend

I plan to give the construction areas a wide berth until they are finished. The west map is big, bigger than the other two. It runs from the flat rock area that gives Flat Rock Road it's name all the way to the river and then hooks south to run along the shoreline. Lots of confusing logging roads - confusing because they are not yet mapped, but that will change over time. There are rock features extending from Flat Rock Road west for at least 500 meters, maybe further, but not as far west as the visitor center.

Looks like the planners did a good job. Each developed area is on a different spur, so as you drive west you come to the Visitor Center, the pioneer camping, the residence and maintenance areas, and the campground. The day-use area is actually the furthest west, and is in the flood plain. I assume there will be a boat ramp - they have logged an area right to the water's edge.

A lot of work remains to be done on the park road. It is only a swath of logged area right now - the construction workers are using the logging roads to get access. Some of the park road will coincide with the old logging roads, some of it will be new construction.

So, my plan is to work the area north of the construction and north of the powerline first, sorting out the logging roads as I go. Once I finish that as far west as the river and the day-use area I'll decide what to do next. There is no construction in the flat rock area west of Flat Rock Road and no construction in the area south of the day-use area - so there are plenty of spots to keep me busy for the next few months until the construction is finished.

Progress so far

A new progress map. This one includes McIntosh Reserve across the river for comparison.

From Chattahoochee Bend

East Map Complete

From Chattahoochee Bend

Spring is here - those are the first mayapples. And I have finished the east map just in time, because I picked off the first tick. Here are the stats:

20 field checking trips
129 hours 45 minutes field checking
37 hours 15 minutes drafting
167 hours total for 2.9 sq km is 57 hours 35 minutes per sq km.

That's slower than the north map, which averaged 47 hours 48 minutes per sq km, probably because of all the bare rock and the boulders.

Total project time so far is over 400 hours with 1920 miles traveled.

Boulder count: 936, not counting the "rocky ground" symbol.

The most prominent features of the east map are the bare rock and boulders, although the topography is interesting and confusing. It should be a big challenge for the orienteer.

The west map is next, and it is the biggest of the three. If I look at only the field checking, and take an average time, it will probably take 208 hours. I average 6.5 hours per trip, so that's 32 trips. With luck, I may finish by March 2011 - another year, which is about on par with the time it took me to do my last big map - Smithgall Woods/Dukes Creek, which took two years.

I'm going to take some time off now - my left knee is suffering from overuse.

East map - not done yet

The week of mapping is over, and I did not finish the east map. The area across the creek turned out to be more complex and subtle than I thought. Good news for orienteers, bad news for the mapper. I spent two days trying to sort out the details of self-similar saddles, hills, and reentrants. Am I in this saddle or that one? Which hill is this again? And there are plenty of old roads that all seem to be going the same way. Not good when the mapper is confused. So I will need at least one more day, maybe two to finish up the east map.

Old Cemetery

I've probably mapped about 2000 acres of the park now (only a thousand more to go), but today I found the first cemetery. It is way out on the east map, on the other side of the creek, high on a hill. Not very far from the southeast boundary, but difficult to get to. It looks very similar to the graves at McIntosh Reserve, another of the GAOC orienteering maps, which is just across the border from Chattahoochee Bend.

There are four graves, marked by rock slabs above ground:

From Chattahoochee Bend

From Chattahoochee Bend

The largest one is open on the end - you can see inside:

From Chattahoochee Bend

But sorry, no bones:

From Chattahoochee Bend

A Week of Mapping

Took a week off from the real job to attempt to get as much done on the east map as possible before the leaves come out. Once spring arrives, mapping slows down because of the reduced visibility.

It's been an exhausting week, and it's not over yet. Let's see if I can remember what has happened so far!

Saturday 3/13/10: Finished the eastern side of the big ridge of rocks. For some reason, most of the boulders are on the west side of the ridges. On the eastern side, there are more bare rock areas, some of them ending in cliffs.

From Chattahoochee Bend

Sunday 3/14/10: Went orienteering at Joe Kurz!

Monday 3/15/10: There's a large shallow reentrant east of the big ridge that's about 400x600 meters. It's pine, logged at some point in the distant past, terraced by some poor farmer (or slaves?). Visibility is poor, but it's not green. Naturally I saved that reentrant for later in the week. I extended the big creek all the way out to the northeast corner of the map. Measuring all the twists and turns, it's 2.1 km. Straight line, it's only 1.5km. It gets bigger and bigger the further northeast it flows.

From Chattahoochee Bend

Tuesday 3/16/10: Time to finally fill in the big shallow reentrant. Not an easy task. There is an old logging road that is barely visible that circles through the reentrant without actually going anywhere. It leaves almost no trace on the forest floor, so it doesn't show up on the lidar contours, yet is is easily visible to an orienteer. So I spent considerable time trying to get it accurately located. After that, everything went smoothly. Here's an example photo of what the road looks like, as it is crossing a small bare rock area:

From Chattahoochee Bend

Wednesday 3/17/10: There's a knob of map that extends north of the big power line on the east map, about 550x800 meters, although part of it is only 250 meters wide. It's plenty big enough for running into and out of. And it is jam packed with rocks. This was the day that it rained, so I spent half a day running up the western boundary before the wet drove me off.

Thursday 3/18/10: Volunteered with the GATC north of Neels Gap for the alternate spring break program - I am on vacation after all.

Friday 3/19/10: A very long day. Finished the knob of map. Lots and lots of boulders up here, but the pattern of big rocks on the west of the ridge and bare rock on the east continued. Here's a big hill of boulders:

From Chattahoochee Bend

And here's some bare rock:

From Chattahoochee Bend

Saturday 3/20/10: I'm taking the day off from field checking. Lots and lots of drafting to catch up on. I've mapped everything north of the big creek. I still have two days left of vacation (Monday is off too). Can I finish everything south of the creek in two days? Stay tuned.

The Big Creek

All the big geological features in this section of the map run southwest to northeast, so it's no surprise that the big creek runs - southwest to northeast. I don't know where this creek begins, because it does not cross any of the roads south of the map. It's pretty big for having such a short run. It crosses the road on the northeast corner of the map on it's way to the river. How big is it?

From Chattahoochee Bend

Not as big as the creeks at Cochran Mill. More the size of the creek at Pickett's Mill. There won't be any problem crossing it during normal water levels - although you will get your feet wet. Here's where one of the old roads fords the creek:

From Chattahoochee Bend

My plan is to finish everything north of the creek before crossing it and mapping the other side. At one spot there is a very nice beaver swamp and impressive dam:

From Chattahoochee Bend

That's the dam in that photo bending across. I thought maybe I would get a break from the boulders down in this section, but it's not to be. There are some huge rock gardens that are awaiting mapping:

From Chattahoochee Bend

From Chattahoochee Bend

Map Sample

Here's another map sample, this one with a variety of bare rock and boulder features to ponder, including a couple of boulders drawn to scale (the black blobs). Click to see the whole thing:

From Chattahoochee Bend

Boulders, Boulders, Boulders

From Chattahoochee Bend

Boulder count is about 300. Ocad (the map CAD software) has a feature where it will count all instances of a symbol. 300 seems like a lot, but it's not really. The Red Top State Park map, by comparison, has around 1500 boulders. Of course, I am still not halfway done with this map, so the number of boulders will certainly climb. What is unique about Chattahoochee Bend is that the boulders are not evenly distributed (like they are at Red Top). They are in bands, running across the map. And they are much larger than the boulders at Red Top. The largest I have found so far is 16 meters by 20 meters and 5 meters tall. That's big enough to be mapped "real size". Instead of using a black dot or triangle, the boulder is drawn in black to scale on the map - impressive.

From Chattahoochee Bend

From Chattahoochee Bend

From Chattahoochee Bend

From Chattahoochee Bend

From Chattahoochee Bend

It is also very challenging to map so many boulders. I spent five hours on Saturday doing an area only about 300 meters square. Deciding what not to map is very important, as is deciding which symbol to use - small dot, large dot, triangle, irregular triangle, or mapped to scale. Here's a small example:

From Chattahoochee Bend