The Rains at Kennesaw Mountain - Its Daily Impact

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1 The Rains at Kennesaw Mountain - Its Daily Impact Sherman wrote that, prior to arriving at Kennesaw Mountain in June 1864, it had rained for 19 straight days. One of his soldiers said 21 days of rain. Since Sherman rode a horse and lived in cabins, houses, or tents, and the soldier walked and lived in the muddy trenches, I ll go with the 21 days on this one. In late December I decided to experience a little living history and see Kennesaw in the rain. We had 10 inches of rain in the 10 days before these pictures were taken, and it was still raining after a 3 rain event when I hiked. I waited until the lightning stopped (always, safety first) and took off on the south loop to see the good and the bad. I only saw one other fool person out there in the rain all day. This is the new bridge on the Kolb Farm Connector. The entire area to the right (upstream was flooded. I don t believe the old culvert could have carried the flow, and about 100 feet or so of trail would have been flooded. Note the rip rap under the bridge on the right side. Without it we would eventually lose the bridge to erosion since these bridge abutments are not sunk into the ground. Although there is more space on the left side, we should put more rip rap over there for the next tropical storm that works its way through. Anybody and build trails for sunny days, but we can do it for the floods. This is a great piece of work. 1

2 FYI, I ll bet you didn t know that John Ward Creek was 100 feet wide. This is the trail crossing of the sewer easement at John Ward Creek east. This little river was 6 to 8 inches deep, deeper than my boots, and too wide for an old guy to jump. But I was clever and got myself across. The good news here is that there is more work to do and we all have job security in the Trail Club. 2

3 This turnpike on the south could not be working better. The whole area was flooded. There was heavy flow from right to left through all 3 drain pipes. The North turnpike has a few issues yet. Thousands of feet have compressed the trail and water collects (but does not flow like it used to). We need to remove a few rocks and build dips to get rid of the water. Also, I m afraid to say, some of the soft mystery dirt has worked its way up to the top of the trail and makes pockets of muck. High water it does get higher. 3

4 This is the pond on the Cease Fire Trail near the Texas Monument what happened to our pipe? We need a larger pipe covered like we did on the Environmental Trail. The photo below is on the Kolb s Farm Trail east between Perry s Battery and milepost 4.0. This puddle is about 1/8 a mile long in heavy rain. It is a flat, low lying area. With millions of feet over the years compressing the trail, the trail is the lowest spot around. Tough to fix, but we can do it. 4

5 Okay, now from yesterday, 2/2/16. This is our old nemesis, the always rutted trail up Pigeon Hill, until now. Not one single rut anywhere. This really, really looks good. And, although I didn t take a picture, the trail down into the saddle from Little K behind Ector s trenches also looks great. Did we do that? This is the work we did last month in the saddle between Pigeon Hill and Little K. Again, no ruts yet, except for one little one up around the turn to the left that appears to have been instigated by a burrowing critter. This also is really good. 5

6 All the springs in the park are running strong. This spring to the left front of the photo is on the Brumby trail, and runs down the trail about 100 feet. Hikers have already blazed two detour trails in the woods around the mud where the trail curves. The old spring on the trail/road near the curve halfway up Big K has overflowed the ditch and was running down the trail again. My foot-pulaski couldn t didn t get the job done to fix it. 6