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

‎
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)

Standing Indian Loop - More Trip Pics

More Trip Pics

 

Bob Beaullieu

Standing Indian Loop - More Trip Pics....

Hiking the Standing Indian Loop has been on my "bucket list" for a while now. We had planned an advanced hike for the troop last November and many of the 2014 Philmont Crew Members had signed up to go but an early winter cold spell with wind chill in the single digits forced us to change destinations to the Pine Mountain Trail in West Georgia. So, I was very excited to have a chance to help put this hike together for our crew.

 

The Standing Indian Loop (24 mi) is made up of three trails, the Kimsey Creek Trail (3.7 mi), the Appalachian Trail (18 mi) and the Long Branch Trail (2.3 mi) and crosses the summits of Standing Indian Mountain (el 5,498) and Albert Mountain (el 5,250). There are three shelters on the Appalachain Trail portion of the loop, numerous tent sites and many streams along the way. This is a rigorous hike with a particularly steep ascent up Albert Mountain.

 

I would like to thank the other adults on the trip, Mr. Roeser and Mr. Newton for sharing the responsibility of logistics and support for the crew. It takes a lot of planning for a trip like this when none of the adults have previously hiked the route. Fortunately, the internet has a wealth of information about this loop and we were able to put together a great itinerary for the 20-14 Philmont Crew.

 

I took quite a few pictures along the way and will use the balance of this post to share what I caught with my camera.

 

Bob Beaullieu

 

 

 

 

Re: Standing Indian Day 2 Update

Wow, what a hike. My kudos to everyone in the group. I would say you have met the necessary requirements to be prepared for Philmont. I have not seen your trek but even during my 90+ mile Philmont trek, the most we ever did was maybe 12 miles. Hikes such as you just finished are steeper and more technical than you would see at Philmont. The only difference is the sheer elevation. If you keep the cardio up, you will have a great & less stressful time at Philmont.

Sincerely,

John McFarland

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 11:26 AM, <rodroeser@gmail.com> wrote:

‎We knew that Sunday was going to be a long day, but it turned out to be even longer than anticipated. Following a morning devotion by our crew chaplain, Sean Larsen, we started hiking around 8:30 on Sunday morning. The plan was to hike about 10 miles on the AT to just past Albert Mountain. When we arrived at that campsite, it had been closed for rejuvenation and was relocated another 2 miles down the trail. This particular section was fairly steep with very little room to move left or right off of the trail so nowhere to create our own campsite. We were also in the middle of a pretty good rain storm. 

We arrived at the relocated campsite about an hour or so later and found that there wasn't any room for our tents. There was a new AT shelter there that already had occupants.   ‎We discussed our options with the crew and decided to hike the remaining 3 miles that afternoon and come off the trail early. 

The final 3 miles proved to be quite a challenge. Everyone was pretty tired after the first 12 miles and with the rain the hiking became technical in nature. We arrived at the end of our trip at about 5:30 and made it back to Chestnut Ridge Christian Church about 9:30 pm. 

The highlight of the day was climbing to the summit of Albert Mountain. If you have a chance do a google search for Albert Mountain Fire Tower and read about the history which is really interesting.   All of the scouts and adults said that the climb up to the summit was possibly the most difficult climb they had done with a fully loaded backpack.   Basically, the climb was very steep with portions done scaling the rock face. Getting to the summit though was well worth the effort. Our visit at the summit was cut short though due to the thunder and lightning that started to roll in when we were at about the half way mark up to the top. 

In summary, we hiked 9 + miles on Saturday and 15 miles on Sunday for a total of 24 +. We had some sore feet, knees, and a couple blisters, but all in all everyone did very well. The training hikes we've been doing since January have made a substantial difference in our preparedness for Philmont. 

I've attached a couple more pictures taken with my phone. Both Mr Newton and Mr Beaullieu have pictures as well and we will consolidate and get them out to everyone. You will notice that the pictures on Albert Mtn look dark and this is because of the thunderstorm cloud that had rolled in while we were there. 

Great job everyone. 

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

5/25/14 - Standing Indian Day 2 Update

Bradley and Mr. Newton - Albert Mtn Fire Tower

Bradley - Albert Mtn Fire Tower

Ben and Mr Roeser - Albert Mtn Fire Tower

Mr Beaullieu - Hanging Bear Bag

Bradley

‎We knew that Sunday was going to be a long day, but it turned out to be even longer than anticipated. Following a morning devotion by our crew chaplain, Sean Larsen, we started hiking around 8:30 on Sunday morning. The plan was to hike about 10 miles on the AT to just past Albert Mountain. When we arrived at that campsite, it had been closed for rejuvenation and was relocated another 2 miles down the trail. This particular section was fairly steep with very little room to move left or right off of the trail so nowhere to create our own campsite. We were also in the middle of a pretty good rain storm. 

We arrived at the relocated campsite about an hour or so later and found that there wasn't any room for our tents. There was a new AT shelter there that already had occupants.   ‎We discussed our options with the crew and decided to hike the remaining 3 miles that afternoon and come off the trail early. 

The final 3 miles proved to be quite a challenge. Everyone was pretty tired after the first 12 miles and with the rain the hiking became technical in nature. We arrived at the end of our trip at about 5:30 and made it back to Chestnut Ridge Christian Church about 9:30 pm. 

The highlight of the day was climbing to the summit of Albert Mountain. If you have a chance do a google search for Albert Mountain Fire Tower and read about the history which is really interesting.   All of the scouts and adults said that the climb up to the summit was possibly the most difficult climb they had done with a fully loaded backpack.   Basically, the climb was very steep with portions done scaling the rock face. Getting to the summit though was well worth the effort. Our visit at the summit was cut short though due to the thunder and lightning that started to roll in when we were at about the half way mark up to the top. 

In summary, we hiked 9 + miles on Saturday and 15 miles on Sunday for a total of 24 +. We had some sore feet, knees, and a couple blisters, but all in all everyone did very well. The training hikes we've been doing since January have made a substantial difference in our preparedness for Philmont. 

I've attached a couple more pictures taken with my phone. Both Mr Newton and Mr Beaullieu have pictures as well and we will consolidate and get them out to everyone. You will notice that the pictures on Albert Mtn look dark and this is because of the thunderstorm cloud that had rolled in while we were there. 

Great job everyone. 

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

5/24/14 - Standing Indian - Sat Night

Mr B hanging bear bag

Mr B still hanging bear bag

Raymond C

Brockton D

Will O and Brockton D

Ben R…Boy this is tasty.

Sean L

Raymond C

Brockton D on water trip

Carter D water trip

Will O water trip

Sean, Ben, Raymond 

Sean, Ben, Raymond

‎We arrived at Beech Gap this afternoon without any issues. Our hike this morning was uphill for about 4 hours followed by mostly downhill this afternoon.   We hiked about 9 miles.  Elevation change today was from 3,880 at Standing Indian campground to 5,498 at the top of Standing Indian Mtn then back down to 4,431 at Beech Gap campsite.

The pictures above are of the scouts setting up camp and cooking their dinner.  Mr Beaullieu is hanging his bear bag.  We walked over several piles of bear scat on the trail so we knew that bears were active in the area.

Tomorrow is a 10 mile day and we are headed toward the summit of Albert Mountain. We've got some sore feet and knees but everyone is doing well.

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