Snow and the Stupid Forest Service

Last weekend we had the prediction of at least two inches of snow, so what do I do? Go camping of course. The plan was to leave Friday morning and drive up to the Cohutta Wilderness Area, hike in and set up a base camp and then loaf around until Sunday. The first hurdle that we came to was that the forest service roads did not match the map that we from the Tim Hoffman Guidebook for the Cohutta and Big Frog Wilderness area. So after driving around and back tracing two or three times we found the road that we should have been on all along (FS 64 going NE). At this time it is 1pm and beginning to snow, which is great except that we are still miles from our destination. As we drove up the FS road to the boundary of the Cohutta, the snow began sticking. By the time we reached the Cohutta boundary the roads were almost to snow covered for our two wheel drive pickup. I was at this point that we discovered that both directions into the Cohutta had locked gates, instead of just the eastern route as we had been warned. With no place to park the truck we were forced back down the mountain to a picnic area parking area. Here we pitched camp because the road was to iced over to try driving all the way down and because it was a pretty spot, complete with fire ring and waterfall. Saturday morning we attempted to walk into the Cohutta for a loop day hike. Again we faced unforseen barriers in our path. The farthest that we walked was the about a mile westward in on the Cohutta boundary. After that we made it back to camp, and packed up to drive home early because we had no other hikes close enough to our camping site and because the sanctuary that we had enjoyed brought on by the snow covered roads was broken. Enough sunlight had thawed the roads to make a drive up the mountain in the snow the only activity for every pickup owning individual in Ellijay.

Next time we try a different access point, don't go in the winter and buy a jeep before we leave so that accessibility is not what holds us back.

(for some viewing of our camp and hike attempts visit "http://jimiswanderingacrosstheplanet.shutterfly.com/"