Coopers Furnace and Pine Mountain Summit (Secret Trail Down)

Notice:  If a system glitch with the AOC website allows more people to be registered onto this event beyond the maximum number set on the event description, those excess registrations may be moved to the wait list.  Be assured, people will be cleared off the wait list in order of initial registraions. 

Let’s hike Pine Mountain near Cartersville along with a trip down to the historic Cooper's Iron Furnace.  We will park at the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) visitors center at Lake Allatoona and begin our hike there.  

We will start heading towards Pine Mountain using the Laurel Ridge trail and the Pine Mountain connector to reach the base of Pine Mountain.  As we head up to the top of the mountain using the East Loop, we will gain approximately 800 feet of altitude, reaching the David Archer overlook with an excellent view of Lake Allatoona.  

After a short break to take in the view, we will begin heading down the mountain using a little known or used trail that tracks back along a ridge line all the way to the Etowah River.  Be aware, this trail is very steep in part of the decent and hiking poles would be very useful to assist with the hike down.

From there, we will head back towards the Cooper Furnace ruins which were partially destroyed by Sherman in 1864 on his way towards Atlanta.  Finally we will head back to the Army Corps of Engineers visitors center and our cars using the Cooper Furnace and Laurel Ridge trails.  

Our hike will transit about 7 miles with a total gain of about 1300 feet, taking us about 3 hours to complete.  I would definitely not recommend this hike for beginners due to the overall elevation gain and length of the hike.

There are bathrooms in the ACE visitor center along with a very interesting museum giving a history of the building of the Allatoona dam and lake and of the former town of Etowah which now sits under about 100 feet of water behind the dam.

• Take I-75 north towards Cartersville
• After passing the Cartersville exits, take exit 290 
• At bottom of ramp, turn right onto Route 20
• IMMEDIATELY after turning onto Route 20, take right onto Route 20 Spur.  This turn is literally 400 feet after turning onto Route 20
• Proceed approximately 4 miles on 20 Spur to the end.  
• At the end, you will see a reach a Y intersection. Turn up drive to the right that goes up the the Army Corps of Engineers project office at Lake Allatoona.  Park anywhere.