I live in Georgia, so it only seemed right that this journey start with Georgia.

In the midst of my travel-madness I planned a last minute trip to Colorado to hike some 14ers during the onset of fall. I settled on the Decalibron (a nice loop that allows summiting 4 14ers in a single day) and Mt. Elbert – the highest point in Colorado.

Trekking poles were going to be required so I ordered some online (Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Z – will review later). I decided a warm up hike was necessary, so Brasstown it was.

One of my rules for hiking peaks is that I start at least 3 miles from the summit, if reasonable, for a minimum 6 mile round trip. For my Brasstown Bald summit, I settled on the Arkaquah Trail, which is an 11 mile round trip hike. I set out on Oct 24, 2015… the official start to my 50 state high point journey.

The Arkaquah Trail is in North East Georgia in the Chattahoochee National Forest. I suspect I will create pages for each of the hikes to give better information about location, terrain, total travel time, etc. For now, we will stick to the story.

I’m not much of a morning person so I got quite a late start on this hike. The trail is uncharacteristically steep. The trail makers seems to have had a religious aversion to switchbacks and elected to send the trail straight up! This turned out to be valuable training for my subsequent Colorado trip, but was not particular appreciated at the time.

Up. Up. Up. No views. Just trees. Then you finally reach the ridge. At that point the trail furnishes a number of decent views over the Appalachian Mountains as it carries you towards the gap before Brasstown.

Those flashy new trekking poles I mentioned? Well, the genius I am, I determined there was no need to read the trekking pole manual before departing. Mistake. I completed the 11 mile hike without figuring out how to lock the poles. Every time I planted one in the dirt and took a step forward… POP… the pole pulled apart and the sections swung apart. Taunting me relentlessly. I spent most of the hike thinking to myself “These black diamond people are idiots, these things are terrible” and “for $190 these things BETTER lock somehow”. I even googled on my phone at one point but couldn’t find an answer. Turns out the only idiot was me.

After a few miles Brasstown Bald comes into view.

I continued on up the trail where you eventually reach the parking lot, where the people that want to go to the top but don’t want to hike start off. Okay, I really have no hate. I’m glad people are out enjoying the outdoors.

I proceeded up the (paved) (extremely touristy) (didn’t feel like hiking so I even put my poles away) path to the summit. It was overcast but there were some solid views from the top of the tower at the highest point in GA. I had some snacks, snapped some pictures, and hiked the 5.5 back to the car, arriving just at dark. Here are a few more pics, enjoy!