Monday, November 17, 2008

Recommendation of running area in the Chattahoochee National Forest in N. GA

Since I moved from Athens to N. GA, many of my long trail runs have been at the Lake Russell Recreation Area in the Chattahoochee National Forest not far from the town of Mt. Airy. I highly recommend this area if anyone, for example, drives north on 365/23 from Gainesville, GA to Asheville, NC. There are three main trails there that I have found: Lake Russell, Ladyslipper and the Sourwood trails. These trails are approximately 4.7, 6.2 and 2.7 miles in length, respectively. I have run each independently numerous times, and several times I have run a combination of two out of three.

Brief description of each:
Lake Russell: 4.7 rolling trail following the circumference around the lake. Several access points from the main road that goes through the recreation area
Sourwood: 2.7 hilly trail (great for warmup) through a scenic part of the area. Access is the first left (group camping) from the main road. Then follow the signs
Ladyslipper: Very Hilly. First mile is climbing. then rolling hills, and then the next to last couple of miles have to climb out of valley. Great run, but always exhausts me!

With this background, the next post will describe my first 15 mile run! EVER!

No comments: