Philmont Crew Training Hike - Pine Mountain Trail (Cartersville)

Carter, Bradley, and Ben

Mr Newton, Bradley, Carter, Harper (4-legs), Ben, Mr Roeser

Saturday, June 28, 2014

With the 150th anniversary celebrations going on at Kennesaw Mountain today, we decided to modify our plans for today's training hike and check out a new location.  We made a short drive to near Cartersville and hiked the Pine Mountain Trail which offered scenic views of Lake Allatoona.  This trail is part of the city of Cartersville's Pine Mountain Recreation Area and shouldn't be confused with the Pine Mountain Trail near Callaway Gardens where we had our first crew backpacking outing back in February.

We only had 5 members of our Philmont crew their today (Carter, Ben, Bradley, Mr. Roeser & Mr. Newton), but we were also joined by Mr. Davis and Harper, our crew canine companion.  We started off on the West Loop Trail and hiked through a series of switchbacks to get to the summit of Pine Mountain.  Over the first mile, we had a 675-foot climb which made this comparable to our climb up Sassafrass Mountain on the Appalachian Trail a few weeks ago.  After leaving the summit, we hiked down the East Loop Trail and descended about 600 feet until we reached Cooper Creek.  We hiked along the creek for a short distance before ascending about 500 feet to get back to where the East Loop Trail met the West Loop Trail.  We then hiked the West Loop Trail and descended 500 feet over the next mile to reach the trailhead.  With some side excursions, we hiked around 5 miles.

I know that the scouts and adults really liked the opportunity to hike somewhere other than Kennesaw Mountain.  The hike was challenging especially in light of the humidity.  I believe this was the most humid day that we've experienced on any of our hikes.

-Brad Newton

Short Hike At Gold Branch Today

The crew took a short 5-mile hike today at the Gold Branch trail.  It was very hot & humid today, so the length today was good.  We've completed all of our major training hikes, so now we are just keeping everyone loose until we depart for Philmont on July 16th.

Jetta, Ben, Rod, Carter, Brad, Bradley, Brockton, Will (the dog is Harper)

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Three Forks / Woody Gap - Sunday

From Mr. Newton:

The Philmont crew performed very well this weekend on our backpacking outing from Three Forks to Woody Gap.  With the side excursion to Long Creek Falls, we hiked around 17.5 miles over the course of the two days on the trail.  The scouts kept a good pace throughout and kept calm even when we encountered a young timber rattlesnake sitting in the middle of the trail.  

We had very humid conditions throughout the trip which made the climbs over Sassafrass Mountain (760 feet elevation gain in 1 mile) and Justis Mountain (500+ feet elevation gain in 0.5 miles) all the more challenging.  In general, it seemed like we were either climbing or descending almost all the time (no flat terrain).  Some scouts even thought this was more difficult than our outing at Standing Indian.

One item of importance that came out of this weekend was that all scouts need to be equipped with the capacity to carry 3-liters of water.  This can be either with water bladders or Nalgene bottles.  Since we're sharing water filters at Philmont, several of our filters fit more easily into a Nalgene bottle.  Philmont will give us lemonade type packets at some meals, so if you want to add these to your water, it would be better in a bottle from which you never plan to empty the contents into your bladder.

• If you have a 3-liter bladder, make sure you have at least a 0.5-liter Nalgene.
• If you have a 2-liter bladder, make sure you have at least a 1.0 liter Nalgene.
• Have another small bottle if you plan to mix in the lemonade packets.

-Brad Newton

This is "Survivor Dave".  He showed up at Horse Gap right when we were taking a break.  He had water in his vehicle and gave us enough that we were able to make it to Justus Creek for a re-fill.

Three Forks / Woody Gap Sat Morning

Mr. Newton, Ben, Mr. Roeser, Jetta, Raymond, Bradley, Sean, Bob, Brockton & Carter

Mr Newton, Ben, Jetta, Mr Roeser, Raymond, Bradley, Sean, Bob, Brockton, Carter

Bob, Brockton, Ben, Carter, Mr Newton, Jetta, Sean, Raymond, Bradley, Mr Roeser

Bob, Brockton, Ben, Jetta, Mr Newton, Jetta, Sean, Raymond, Bradley, Mr Newton

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Our shuttle driver met us this morning at 8:30 to take us from Woody Gap up to our trailhead at Three Forks. Here are a few pictures of us looking fresh before the hike today. 

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network.

June 13th - Woody Gap / Three Forks Trip

Jetta & Ben

Bradley & Sean

Carter

Brockton & Jetta

Raymond & Bob

‎This trip is our crews last long trip prior to our Philmont expedition. The remaining weeks will be local training hikes. 

We arrived at our campsite about 8:30 this evening. Getting out of Atlanta with the Friday afternoon traffic proved to be a challenge. 

The crew has their tents set up and we are into evening activities for awhile. We have a shuttle picking us up in the morning and transporting us to Three Forks. We will hike the 16 miles from Three Forks back to Woody Gap where we are leaving our vehicles. 

The weather is nice. No rain and cool.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network.

Gold Branch May 31, 2014

The crew hiked the 5-mile Gold Branch trail on Saturday, May 31st.  We did this following the troop swim checks for summer camp over at the East Hampton neighborhood pool.

After hiking the Standing Indian loop section of the AT the week prior, the Gold Branch trail has become very easy.  I can remember when we did the Gold Branch trail early on in our training and my thought was that it would be a good trail for our training hikes.  About the only time we do Gold Branch these days is when we don't have the time to drive over to Kennesaw Mtn.  It takes about 2-hrs to hike the Gold Branch and since it is on Lower Roswell Rd it is very easy to get to.

We had a few missing crew members due to high school graduation, other camps, and NYLT.

Gold Branch Trail

L to R: Will, Sean, Mr Roeser, Bradley, Raymond (Mr Newton taking photo)

L to R: Mr Newton, Sean, Will, Bradley, Raymond (Mr Roeser taking photo)