Fort Mountain State Park

Rain forecast for the weekend, so we loaded the camper instead of our backpacks. Headed South for Georgia, Fort Mountain State Park, just a two hour drive, and we had never been there.

When we got to the Park we blew past the camper check in, and found the campground, and the gate that required a code. The campground host gave us the code and said to pick our site, don't set up, you have to go back to the entrance and do the camper check in. We saw a lot of empty sites down by the lake and picked 3. Drove back to check in. They are site specific and our first choice was "taken" so we picked #47 with a lake view. We were hoping that our neighbors would not show up.

We got set up and had started our lunch when we heard a noise. After some investigating, we found water running out the side of our camper. Someone, when draining the water tank, forgot to close the blow off valve. I then noticed that the water heater was heating with gas. I had to turn the breaker back on for the electric water heater.

After lunch we took off to see what we could see. We hiked the trail around the lake first where we saw a kiosk with a sign saying "Tower open 1-4 on Saturday". Well, we had to check that out.

We drove to the Cool Springs Overlook for the view and then drove to the Tower trail which is also the Stone Wall Trail which has a lot of info about the "Moon Eyed People" that may have built the wall, and the Cherokee Legend, and the studies that have been done on the rocks to "date" them. MAYBE prehistoric?

The wall was basically a long rock pile which didn't look that old to us, but what do we know? When we got to the tower, the door was locked. So much for our tour. We drove back down to the lake checking out the cabins for rent and hiked the Big Rock trail.

When we got back to the camper it had started to sprinkle. We enjoyed an evening playing Battle Ship and Pay Day. Lora had never played either and it had been at least 30 years since I had. It was a nice evening.

The next morning after breakfast, we hiked to the Goldmine Creek trail. From there we caught the Gahuti trail hiked it back past the lake and up to the Campground Loop trail at the North end of the campground. It sprinkled on us the whole way.

We got back to the camper, ate lunch, and then packed up to leave. Great weekend.

Pictures: