Wed, Apr 22 2009 - Duncan Ridge Trail, Section 2 (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Kathy Malone, Scott Sanders Participants: Scott Sanders, Kevin Crowe, Kathy Malone, Jeff Gimpel

Write Up:
What a great way to celebrate Earth Day - hiking Duncan Ridge Section 2.  The temps were in the mid 40's to mid 60's.  The sky was blue and a nice wind from the west at our backs pushed us along the ridge.

We managed to do some light trail maintenance along the way and remove some small downed trees, and lots of limbs.  The recent storms and high winds have downed dozens of large trees all along the trail.  We left them for the professionals with chain saws!

This would make an excellent trail maintence project for National Trails day.

We finished off the day with a very late dinner in Dahlonega at a Mexican restaurant that Kathy knew about.  I think we all made it home by midnight.

We all thought that the best way to hike this trail is to go up on a  Friday afternoon, or night.  Camp at the Suspension bridge off FS 816 (across the street from the trail head).  Then rise early and start the hike at 6 or 7 am.  This would give a crew a good 12 hours of daylight - you'll want it.  A shuttle crew could communicate with and pick up the hikers and return to a well earned dinner and campout back at the Suspension Bridge on Saturday night. 

I'm seriously considering posting an event like this late in the late summer, as the temps cool and before the leaves start falling.  Shoot me an email if you're interested in an outing like this.  A side benefit to a weekend hike rather than a day hike, is we could have Hikers and Hike Supporters/campers on the same event. 

I'm working on the draft of the GPS posting of the trip, photos, and waypoint descriptions.  Eventually the completed write up will be on this link:

http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/ViewTrip.aspx?tripId=392487

For now you can see the tracks and elevation profiles on this link:

http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/ViewTrip.aspx?tripId=392496

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