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