RA Hike up Oglethorpe Mountain

November 6, 1999

We had our pancake breakfast at the church and headed for Bent Tree for a hike up Big Stump Mountain from the house, and then on to the top of Oglethorpe Mountain.

We drove to Bent Tree and hit the trail up Big Stump Mountain. As we reached the top, we were treated to the view of these two beautiful deer.

The deer were not greatly alarmed at the presence of these boys, so we enjoyed watching them.

We hiked along another logging road at the top of Big Stump Mountain at about 3000 ft altitude.

From the logging road we headed up the slope through the woods as a shortcut to the top of Oglethorp Mt. Leaders are Mark Bryant and Johnny Huffman. I've lost track of the names of the two boys on the left, but the right one is Sidney. The three on the right are Luke Balint, Devin Powell, and Matthew Bryant.

In this nice stretch of woods, what the boys really wanted to do was wrestle with us.

What we have often found is that the best way to establish rapport with a group of active boys is to get on the ground and wrestle with them.

Matthew Bryant and Luke Balint on the high road we reached after our trek through the woods. This is the road that leads to the tower on top of Mt. Oglethorpe.

We reached the top of Mt. Oglethorpe and climbed up the observation platform there. The peak height is 3288ft. Behind us are the mountains of Big Canoe and in the distance is

We headed back down to the top of Big Stump Mountain and stopped at this point (~3000ft) to overlook Lake Tamarack below us (1500ft).

We made the steep hike back down to the house and the boys spent some time playing ping-pong.

A time of ping-pong allowed them to rest up a bit from the steep hike from this altitude (2400ft) to the top of Oglethorpe (3288ft) and back.

But what they really wanted to do was wrestle. So pretty soon there was a pile of boys in the floor wrestling.

They couldn't have been all that fatigued from the hike if they spent all this time wrestling!

They decided that they hadn't had enough hiking, so we went down the old logging road to the east of Buckskull Court where there was a rugged cliff leading back up to the road. Matthew Bryant is making his way up the cliff.

The rugged cliff rose out of the deep green vegetation along a little creek. It was a challenging climb.

The steep cliff and then the steep walk back up Buckskull Ct. to our house was probably enough to give them a good workout for the day. We were soon on our way back toward Atlanta.

It is good to see the boys enjoying a rugged workout in the outdoors. They did seem to enjoy the activity, so we were pleased to be able to provide the opportunity.