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!