hike. “Hiking on a trail takes a little longer to walk a mile than around Lake Bottom Park,” explains Hall. “So, figure how long you want to hike, then hike about half that and rest a few minutes. Then hike back out the same way. If you do ok with that, then try a loop trail.” It is on these loop trails where you will
see how much time and effort Wickham and his crew spent on building the trail. When pressed as to his favorite stretch of the trail, Wickham is understandably reluctant. “Oh, I don’t know. I can say that probably the most popular is the hike to Cascade Falls. You park at the [WJSP] TV Tower parking lot and start from there. There are several other waterfalls along the way, some stepping stones.” Located in Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Native azaleas are common along the Pine Mountain Trail.
The state park has been working on the views at all the overlooks, and they are simply spectacular! -Sarah Gillenwater
State Park, the Pine Mountain Trail is the largest trail system in all of Georgia’s state parks, drawing upwards of 60,000 hikers each year, with nearly 4,000 permitted backpackers spending the night along the trail. And with recent renovations in FDR State Park, those numbers will soon grow. Sarah Gillenwater, manager of the
Mountain Top Inn in Pine Mountain has witnessed the improvements first hand
and is delighted with the new develop- ments. “Te state park has been working on the views at all the overlooks, and they are simply spectacular!” remarked Gillen- water. “Being able to spend an aſternoon hiking to a nearby waterfall under a canopy of golden leaves is always a great reminder of how fortunate we are to be surrounded by such a beautiful landscape.” To the south of Columbus you will
find a much different and wholly unique experience equally worth exploring in Providence Canyon, considered one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Georgia. Unlike the Grand Canyon, which was created by millennia of water erosion cutting into the earth, our “Little Grand Canyon” is a text- book example of man’s hand in altering the landscape. Whereas much thought was put into the Pine Mountain Trail by Wickham and his crew, absolutely no thought was put into the 19th century farming tech- niques employed by the massive influx of settlers to Stewart County, a result of the Creek’s cession of all lands east of the Chattahoochee River following the Treaty of Indian Springs. The erosion wrought by these early farmers’ negligence resulted in the picturesque, multicolored canyon we
26 Columbus and the Valley April 2013
Photo by Jim Hall
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