Alicia Goes Wild

Dedicated to the Awesome People of Rabun County in Northeast Georgia

Alicia Goes Wild....

Sweeping changes reverberated through my life during the past year, and a lot of what I leaned on fell apart. While many doors closed, many more opened, and without much thought given to the reasons why, I jumped through one.

Oconee-Chattahoochee National Forest From Bartram Trail
(Courtesy US Forest Service)

 

 

 

It landed me here in Clayton, Georgia, smack dab in the middle of the Oconee-Chattahoochee National Forest. The path to this space has been filled with unexpected difficulty and unexpected miracles (it’s mostly the human angels I remember most). Meanwhile, as I’ve let expire or deleted just about everything else that I had been working on, I decided that perhaps I might start a new blog and share some of the sights along my trail.  

This is awesome country here. One of my maps describes the Warwoman Wildlife Management Area (which starts right across the road from me) as “located on 15,800 acres of Chattahoochee National Forest timberland in extremely rugged and isolated mountain terrain…. 4 wheel drive vehicles are recommended.”  

Created by a collision between the North America and Europe continents four million years ago, the mountains here consist of brutally broken slabs of native earth thrust upwards one upon another; the violence of that collision is still plain to see in the landscape. They offer many gateways to stunning vistas and raw wilderness.

(There were twelve recorded snakebites in this county last summer; several were fatal).

Cherokee Mother and Child

The Cherokee people once called this home. I live on Warwoman Road which follows a large portion of Warwoman creek, and not far from here is a place called Warwoman Dell. There, the Warwoman, a respected Cherokee dignitary, was said to have voiced her opinions at tribal councils, especially in those matters relating to war and peace. Later, the Georgian Gold Rush led to the displacement of the Cherokee Nation and ultimately the Trail of Tears. 

(Most nights I can hear the coyotes howling outside).

Georgia has an active stocking program, and between that and the crystal clear waters of the many creeks and streams that cascade down the mountains, the waters offer prime fishing for trout. One of the reasons I came this way was to fish for trout, and often it is the promise of that seldom fished, awesome fishing hole that keeps me hiking up and down these trails. I have caught so many trout it almost seems mundane now.

(At least two people drowned in the rough waters of the Chattooga River, near here, last summer).

I continue to hike these mountains, loving the solitude of the trail and the abundant wildlife, wondering just what new experience waits just around the corner, what flower blooms, what critter lurks there.

 

Black Bear, Georgia

 

(A black bear ruined the garden behind my house last summer). 

                This coming season I intend to spend time fishing, camping, hunting ginseng and yellow root, prospecting for gold, selling bait, and acting as a guide on overnight hiking trips. 

My next post is created and will publish on February 14^th, 2013, detailing how I ran away from home and ended up getting off a train in Toccoa, Georgia with nothing more than a backpack full of stuff. I’m hoping to get ahead of publishing five blogs a week; I hope you find some portion of it interesting….