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...