The Great Outsmores

Wilson and I got the new canoe out on the Chattahoochee for some delayed harvest action on a cool, overcast Sunday afternoon. Trouble is, neither one of us monkey-brains checked the release schedule for Buford dam. I know, for those of you familiar with it - stop reading and start laughing.

For everybody else, it wasn’t dangerous, it’s just a waste of time. See, fish hunker down when that “wall” of water comes flowing through the water shed, and won’t bite anything. So, just a friendly reminder that you can check the Buford Dam release schedule by calling before your next outing, and if you see a couple of knuckleheads out on the water at exactly the wrong time, well that may be yours truely.

Buford Dam Release Hotline

770-945-1466

How’s that go? A bad day of fishing is better than a…..

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I was happy to hear this morning that my good friend, Chad Hagan, and his wife to be Emily will be climbing Mt. Hood to benefit Climbing for Kids. They’ve made a personal goal of raising $3,200. Climbing for Kids is run by Bay Area Wilderness Training to benefit at risk inner city youth. It works by getting them out into the bush, and teaching them self reliance, self-confidence, and exposing them to a greater world out side.

To help out, please consider a donation for Chad’s cause, or maybe spread the word.

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I’ve got admit, I’ve never heard of the term videophilia, but I have been a victim of it lately.  On the heels of news that hunting is in a decline , it appears that all outdoors activities may be losing interest with mainstream America. The national parks are reporting declines year over year since the ’80s too.

I just ran across this article, explaining more in depth.  Hopefully I can take a little more time to examine the bad news down the road, but hey this is a blog about having fun - right?

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This Saturday & Sunday (Jan. 26-27) is the 2008 Atlanta Fly Fishing Expo at the Gwinnett Center in Duluth. A number of local and national pros will be on hand teaching both fundamentals and the latest techniques to land more fish. Seminars include:

• Secrets of TVA tailwaters
• W. Carolina Fly Fishing
• Kayak Fishing
• Kids Casting
• Fishing Lake Lanier
• and about a dozen others…

For a complete list & schedule, visit Atlanta’s Fly Fishing Festival’s website.

Also the first 20 visitors to purchase a certificate for a full day of fishing at Nacoochee Bend at our regular price will receive a FREE FLY ROD from Unicoi Outfitters .

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Yup, three days after getting my new canoe, I blew my back out. This weekend, I quit whining and got out on the water. The whole idea was that we’d get a boat big enough for Jenn, myself, and hopefully the two dogs - Aspen and Layla. I know, two people, two dogs, one canoe?

People were looking at us like we were crazy, and in retrospect, perhaps we were.  With the dogs moving around, and it being Jenn’s first time in a canoe - we’re lucky we didn’t go over.

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We got restless one weekend not too far past, and my girlfriend (now wife) and a good buddy loaded up the fast car for some weekend fun in Western North Carolina. Friday night, it’s ten O’clock - we should have been going to bed, or out at the pub….. but Harrah’s casino in Chrerokee, NC, Ashville, and a true gem of a hike were about to be packed into the next 48 hours!

While losing money playing horrible computerized blackjack, history lessons on Native American prostitution in literature, and old men caught vandelizing city property are out of the scope of this blog, a 2 1/2 mile day hike in adverse yet gorgous weather should fit nicely here.

Introducing the Whiteside Mountain Trail, near Cashiers, NC (pronounced cashers, not casheers). Enough moisture stuck around through the advancing cold front from the night before to lend all of the truly fun weather conditions, you know: snow, ice, and low hanging clouds that would create a winter playground in the Southern Blure Ridge.

The Trail
It’s a moderate loop trail, well marked, with a distance of 2.2 miles on trail. Located in the Nantahala NF, just a few miles West of Cashiers, NC, the trail head is very accessible off of US 64, by turning South on Whiteside Mountain Road. The trail winds it’s way around Whiteside Mountain, leading to expansive views of the valleys below and Blue Ridge Mountains in all directions. There are also a number of spur trails, leading to even more exciting vistas, and cliffs that seem to drop into nowhere.

The trail begins as many do in this part of the Appalachians, through dense white oak stands and intermitant hemlocks and rhododendron creating the broken canopy left by winter. In summer, the trail’s vistas play a more stringent game of peek-a-boo, but will give way none the less on the steep cliffs and granite outcrops above. The high was only 34 degrees (F) that day, and we found ourselves alone next to a couple frozen waterfalls along the trail. We even got to play a little ice-sickle baseball with the shards that had come undone from their overhangs.

By the time we reached the first overlook, the clouds had closed in, providing a sensational, yet erie setting - especially when thousand foot cliffs lay near by. Not to worry, cliffs are well marked on the main trail, however overlooks become more tedious on spurs and scrambles. Over the next few hours, as we completed the loop and explored some spur trails and scrambled up, over, and out to miscellaneous ledges. We were offered fleeting glimpses of the views between the hanging clouds passing through our vantage points. We even had snow flurries off and on again through the second half of our hike, making it a unique experience, and other wordly compared to the heat and humidity found here during summer escapades.

Over all, I have to rate this trail as four stars on a normal day, but it becomes truly spectacular when old man winters does his best. Between the extended views offered by an empty canopy, high visibilty of cold clean air (this trip excepted), and an empty trail found these times of year, I would highly recomend it to anybody looking for a great way to shed cabin fever.

A few more photos from the trip:

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If you’re not into seeing the peach drop, and want to see something spectacular on New Year’s eve, you can catch the best show in the North Georgia Mountains. This time of year, enchanting sunsets can be found near Brasstown Bald, Georgia’s highest peak. While a night hike to the summit can be special (with headlamps of course), an easier and nearly equal showing can be had from the South West corner of the parking lot.

Here’s a google earth view of the summit & parking lot looking Southwest over the Cohuttas and Cumberland Plateau:

I’ve had the chance to catch this one twice before, here’s a photo from the last outing:

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The other reason I’ve been away from my blog: PostMapper.com As many of you know, I’ve been trying to put together a way for all of our Outdoors Bloggers to tag their posts on a site wide Google map. Well, as usual, I went a little overboard.

Over the last month or so, I put together a utility that all bloggers can use to tag their posts on one searchable google map, hence PostMapper. I’ll leave the techno speak alone, but here is what it does and how my fellow outdoors and travel bloggers can use it:

What it does:

1. Takes the location of a post, and converts it to coordinates (geocoding)
2. Sends the post’s location, title, excerpt, and link to the PostMapper site
3. The PostMapper site then displays this information on a searchable map, allowing visitors to follow the link back to the participating blog to read the full post.

I’ve already written a mapping plugin for wordpress that does all the hard work, and it even includes a neat little tool for displaying a map within a post by simply typing “

” without the quotes. Soon, Ihope to have a tool for TypePad and Blogger users to tag the map also, I’ll post it here when I do.

I’d sure love it if anybody wants to give it a try, and please don’t hesitate to send any criticism my way.

Lastly, OutdoorsBloggers can already access this utility without having to do anything but activate the plugin.

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One of the reasons I’ve been away from the blog so much lately is a charity project I started this holiday season, and hope to do again next year (with help). About two and half weeks before Christmas, I started the first annual Business for Kids Bicycle Roundup. The idea was simple, to spread the word about North Fulton Community Charities Santa shop, and get businesses to donate a kids bicycle to the cause.

Well, it worked. We initially put a goal of 100 bikes in two weeks, which may have been a bit ambitious. We ended up collecting 33 new bikes for the Santa shop, and getting another dozen or dozen and a half used bikes to be donated to the NFCC thrift shop. It ended up being around 20 trips all around Northern Atlanta to pick them up, and some long days between the day job and the roundup.

For both of my readers, sorry, but this was something I have wanted to do for some time. Next year, we plan on starting in November, and getting a few more folks involved with the pickups and deliveries. Any one interested in chipping in, please feel free to drop me an email at wade (at) outdoorsblogger.com.

Lastly, a special thanks to Roswell Bicycles for their generousity and for discounting bicylces bought for this charity event.

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A couple of folks asked, so I wanted to share. I must have been good this year, cause Santa was as good to me as I ever remember.

First up, a Coleman Duel Fuel lantern. I’ve had an old propane powered single mantle lantern for years, and it’s been great. But this was a huge step up not only for the extra mantle, but that it can run on arguably the most available fuel around: unleaded gasoline.

This will be (i hope) more convenient for resupplying on longer trips, since gas stations are more prevalent than Walmarts in the boonies. Also, it’s always a pain when having to track down a REI or Walmart when travelling via plane.

Nalgene makes a great product, as best covered here. North Face also makes a great product. Both companies have been criticized lately for getting away from their core businesses, but this has got to be a home run!

On the outside, a super tough lexan skin sporting the NF logo. Inside, is a slide out plastic liner that won’t hold the smell and taste of booze (scotch flavored vodka must be awful). The outer part of the cap (blue part) actually slides off, making a neat little jigger sized measuring cup!

Lastly, I just can’t figure out how he got down the chimney with this one. Nothing less than a 17 foot red Mad River canoe, with a square back. Actually, my wife got me this, making me the luckiest man on the planet. I mean, who gets their husband something that will inevitably lead to more weekend days away from her on the river? This can only mean that she wants to come along…..

I spend so much time working, playing, working, working, playing, charity working….. I forget sometimes to stop and be thankful for all those around me that care so much. I guess that’s the most important part of Christmas, the thoughts and best wishes that these material things represent, not the things themselves.

That said, I look forward to testing the last two out this weekend!

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