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