RA Trip to Stone Mountain

October 6, 2007

We had a pancake breakfast at the church and headed out for Stone Mountain to hike. Kevin Bartlett with Grayson, Bailey Hall, Johnny Huffman, Corey Tyson and his dad, Wayne Tyson.

Just the kind of shot to build confidence in the parents who send their kids with us on hikes! Well, anyway, we had two of the parents with us.

We approached the mountain from the steep side, but then started up the trail on the more gradual slope through big bunches of yellow flowers.

The bubble gum post is a familiar landmark on the way up Stone Mountain. There were lots of purple berries and the goldenrod was in bloom.

We made it up to the picnic area halfway up the mountain and stopped for water and apples.

The kids spotted this nice butterfly and we chased it for a while.

The intricacy of the flowers is always fascinating to me. Just above our snack location, Cory heads into the rocks as we get closer to the top of the mountain.

Johnny is on top of the rock, and the kids are in the cave below it.

Bailey and Grayson get high enough that they can now look out over the city. Cory joins them at right, and pretends to be ready to fly likes the hawks we see circling.

Bailey is as agile as a deer on the rough rocks near the cave. Above there the rock smoothed out as we approached the summit of this rock dome. You can see the peak above right.

We made it to the top and continued over the top of the dome toward the steep side where we could see the lakes and the cable car.

We all enjoyed being on the top, watching the cable cars and looking down at the lakes of Stone Mountain Park.

There are many shallow rock bowls in the top of the Stone Mountain granite, and they were filled with clear water from a recent rain. Grayson and Bailey enjoyed splashing in those rock bowls.

It is always fascinating to me to see the tenacity of life atop this big granite dome. On top of solid rock hundreds of feet thick, seeds take root in a tiny amount of soil around the water-collecting bowls and in cracks and crevices.

As we prepared to come back down the mountain, we gathered on the edge with the skyline of Atlanta dimly visible behind at the horizon.

Bailey Hall was a great hiker and a great sport about everything.

After our traditional RA lunch at the base of the great granite dome we had just climbed, we headed back for Mableton.