Fall Colors Hike at Panola Mountain with Wild Animals Bonus!

IN a NUTSHELL:  The fall colors will at their brilliant peak for this blue-sky 70-degree hiking day at beautiful Panola Mountain.  Please join us for this fun "combo" hiking & nature event.
  A very well-preserved "sister" of Stone Mountain just 10 miles to its north, Panola is a "well kept secret" with relatively few visitors.  This lovely "state conservation park" is just 15 minutes from the east-side I-20/I-285 Interchange and is an easy drive from anywhere in the metro area.  (See detailed directions & GPS coordinates below, and for a map click the red "Location icon" above.)
  The park boasts about 10 miles of hiking trails including the nice "Rock Outcrop" and "Watershed" trails that loop conveniently from the fascinating Park Nature Center.  For our AOC visit this Saturday we'll enjoy some moderately paced hiking and also take advantage of the park's special wild animal exhibits and presentations that focus primarily on safe up-close demonstrations of many of our native frogs, turtles, lizards and other reptiles.

EVENT PLAN:  We'll gather at 9:30 AM inside the Nature Center.  (Any who wish to carpool from NE Atlanta to the Park may optionally meet me earlier at 8:45 AM at the designated free "Radio Tower" lot - see below.)  After checking out the Nature Center's exhibits and wild animal demos, we'll do a little hiking there, then caravan by car about 2 miles to the pretty "Alexander Lake" section of the Park where we'll enjoy another hour or so of hiking, including some along the Arabia-Panola trail that's much like the Silver Comet.
 If you like bring in your pack (in addition to about a liter of water) a few Snack & Lunch Items  of your choice.  At about noon we'll take a short lunch break at a scenic stop along the hike.
  Our total distance covered will likely be about 6 miles with our uphill ascents totalling no more than about 500 feet in elevation gain.  (This time we don't intend to include the Panola "summit hike" which has to be specially arranged and requires a fee.)
  We should be back at our cars ready to depart the Park by about 1:00 PM

PANOLA'S UNIQUE GEOLOGY & BIOLOGY:   We'll stop at various scenic spots along the hikes to observe and discuss the park's amazing geology and its rare flora and fauna.
  Like Stone Mountain, the rock outcrops at Panola took shape about 300 million years ago when bubbles of molten magma oozed upward into preexisting rock and earth. After they cooled and hardened, these bubbles slowly became exposed as miles of softer layers above them eroded away, leaving the giant domes, large boulders and other rock outcrops that we see today.
  Over the eons, a wide variety of plants began to grow on the weathered granite surfaces and their surrounding terrain, creating habitats for rare flora and fauna that are unique to such rocky ecosystems. Notable is the "Diamorpha" succulent whose colonies of thousands of tiny plants thrive in flat sandy "solution pits" on the outcrops, turn brilliant red in late winter, and produce lovely white blossoms each spring.

FOR MORE INFO on PANOLA MOUNTAIN:   Visit the State Park's official website at the following link and click on "Hiking," etc. under "Activities" for more details:
http://www.gastateparks.org/PanolaMountain

FOR MORE on PANOLA'S WILD ANIMAL EXHIBITS & PRESENTATIONS this SATURDAY click here: http://www.gareptilesociety.org/reptileday

PANOLA MOUNTAIN STATE PARK is about a 15-minute drive from the I-20/ I-285 interchange on Atlanta's east side. You "Northsiders" bear in mind that it's perhaps an additional 25 minutes to that I-20 interchange via I-285.   SUGGESTION: Re-zero your odometer at each instruction below and pay close attention to the mileages given and driven.

FROM the I-20/ I-285 INTERCHANGE on ATLANTA'S EAST SIDE:

1.  Take I-20 East just 1 mile  (toward Augusta) and exit to your right at the first opportunity at "Wesley Chapel Rd/Snapfinger Rd", Exit #68."

2. Turn Right onto Wesley Chapel Road and go just 0.2 mile to the traffic light at Snapfinger Road.

3. Turn Left onto Snapfinger Road and go about 7.0 miles to the "Panola Mountain State Park" entrance on your left. (Snapfinger Rd becomes concurrent with GA-155 en route to the Park.)

4. Turn Left into the State Park, continue to the parking lot about 0.2 mile ahead and park near the Nature Center. (It's just beyond the far end of parking lot on your right). Each driver who doesn't display a valid GA State Parks annual Parking Pass will need to pay the $5.00 daily parking fee (either to the Park gate attendant or in a self-service envelope) and hang the receipt on your rear-view mirror.

5. We'll gather at 9:30 AM.  For an online map of our Nature Center meeting point and its surrounding State Park vicinity click on the red "location icon" at the top of this article. 

LAT/LON COORDINATES of NATURE CENTER PARKING LOT.   May be useful in conjunction with the above directions as your entered GPS destination or with Google Maps:
  33.6251,-84.1705

GPS USERS BEWARE!  Entering  the generic Internet Park name or street address as your GPS or Google Maps destination may route you to a dead end in the adjoining Golf Course!  Note the correct directions above, esp. for the final 2 miles into the Park.

PARK NATURE CENTER Phone Number: 770-389-7801.   

As mentioned above, please be prepared to pay your share of the cash self-serve $5-per-vehicle parking fee if your vehicle doesn't display a GA State Parks annual pass.

If the event has to be canceled for any reason (e.g. severe weather) we'll do our best to notify everyone ASAP prior to the event (by email and/or phone) and post "Canceled" in the above online event announcement title.