Sat, Mar 20 2010 - Summit GA's Highest Peaks: #3 - Dicks Knob (4620') (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Scott Looper, Danny Participants: Danny, Scott Looper, Stefan, Caroline, Laura Judy, patricia, Pavan, David M

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Write Up:
Things were starting off okay except that we missed the turn to head towards the Standing Indian Campground.  We turned around at the Forest Service road to Deep Gap and corrected our little mistake.  When we got to the Standing Indian Campground we ran into an unanticipated locked gate across the Forest Service road.  What kind of Forest Service is that?  The trip leaders wondered then why they didn't think to call up there to check on this.  Thoughts ran wild for a few minutes and map study began.  Our original starting trailhead was 3 miles away down the dirt road and our ending trailhead was 5 miles away down the dirt road.  We decided to change the starting trailhead to the Big Indian Loop Trail (a horse trail) which was only 2 miles down the dirt road.  It turned out to be a pretty nice trail with orange blazes, easy to follow but with some minor clearing required from time to time along the way.  We crossed a few creeks in this area.  This trail met the trail we wanted to be on which was the Beech Gap Trail, near a place called Kilby Gap.  For a while we were following the blue-blazed Beech Gap Trail and the orange-blazed Big Indian Loop Trail.  At Kilby Gap the orange trail continued its loop and took a right and we stayed on the blue-blazed trail to Beech Gap.  It's much easier climbing Beech Gap from this side as opposed to coming up from the Tate City side.  We took a small break (all of our breaks were small due to our high mileage requirements) then headed north on the AT.  After just a little bit, we saw the ridge heading up to Small Bald on our right, and we took it.  Soon we were into tight rhododendron thickets and very technical bushwhacking.  We kept seeing boundary markers that had to be county line markers as well, so we felt that we were on the right track.  Kept checking the compasses too to make sure we were logically heading the right direction.  After much effort we finally broke through the thickets to the bald on top of Little Bald: A strange place surrounded by 20 foot high rhododendron thickets and no views.  The relief from the thickets didn't last long as we punched our way through them towards our next goal of Bear Gap.  It almost seemed impassible at first, but we kept punching and it started dropping off rapidly.  We were all knowing that we would have to climb straight back up this thing, but we weren't too discouraged.  It finally opened up a bit and we could see our main goal Dick's Knob only about a half mile away.  It looked like Little Kennesaw Mountain from Big Kennesaw Mountain in a way.  The climb out from Bear Gap was gentle though and very easy walking.  Spotted a small cliff on the left on the way up that yielded good views of Picken's Nose right next to us.  Soon we were celebrating the summit!  After about 15 minutes it was time to start heading back.  We stayed more onto the top of the ridge on the way back up Little Bald and the climbing was a bit easier.  We also avoided the super thick stuff on Little Bald's summit this time.  Got into a good bit of leftover snow during this portion.  We met back up with our original footprints and started seeing the boundary signs again, so we were on our backtrack.  Still, we didn't go back exactly the same way we came in, but that was fine.  Once back on the AT we decided to carry onto the Timber Ridge Trail as originally planned.  This trail took us back to the Forest Service road and by some pretty cascades.  Once on the road, it was a brisk 5 mile walk (miles 17 through 21 of the hike) back to the locked gate and the cars.  We went to a Mexican place in Clayton for a late dinner and headed back to Atlanta - Adventure completed and mission accomplished (with changes from the original plans)!

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