Hiking the Mountain...

The verdict is in ....

.... it's a cold.

I will use that as my excuse for last night's sort-of-grumpy-sort-of-tongue-in-cheek post about all the things I hate. Only I left out a few, so I'll save those for another night.

Sweet Girl has come home to go with me to the football game this weekend, and she wanted to hike up Stone Mountain. If you're not familiar with the "largest exposed mass of granite in the world," click on this link to read a short article about it. A Google search will point to many other sources of information.

It was a fairly cold, blustery day here in Georgia, but the temperatures were forecast to rise into the 60's. So I made the intelligent, reasonable (and reasoned), wise, informed decision to leave my jacket in the car when we got to the parking lot and go in just my long-sleeved t-shirt. After all, we would be exerting ourselves hiking up the mountain, and the day was supposed to warm up.

This intelligent, (sometimes) reasonable, wise, college-educated adult didn't take into consideration the winds and the increased altitude at the top of the mountain.

I didn't freeze to death, but I would have kicked myself in the rear end if it hadn't meant risking tumbling off the face of the mountain. And there were signs everywhere threatening to prosecute me if I were so stupid as to fall off the mountain.

Part of the trail going up the side of the mountain. It isn't all this uneven, but it gets quite a bit steeper.

The Atlanta skyline, seen from the top of the mountain.

My girl!

Don't they understand this is just a CHALLENGE? Ha ha ha.

The yellow dashed lines show directionally-challenged people like me the walking path up the side of the mountain. More importantly, they show the way back.

Yours truly. My shirt says "Witch and Famous." My only concession to Halloween. Well, that and the candy.

There are numerous carvings like this along the pathway up the mountain. I'm sure there are others beyond the "do not pass this fence" area.

I was intrigued by this marker. It is dated 1873, so I suppose that's when it was placed.

I've never ridden the skylift to the top of the mountain, but I would like to. It wasn't running today due to the high winds.

Tempting...

I found myself wishing I lived closer to the mountain so I could hike it more frequently. Rozmo lives nearby, and as it turns out, she was at the mountain today too, but our paths didn't cross.