Big Poplar Loop

Church was cancelled today due to anticipated poor street conditions. In addition, my family has been in Nashville, so I had no commitments for the entire day. Despite the really cold weather and remaining snow, I could not resist taking advantage.

I decided to go south, where at least it would be a few degrees warmer. I headed back to F D Roosevelt State Park, intending to do the Big Poplar Loop (7.8 mi, Climb: ***, Terrain: ***, Interest: ***). While I have done loops involving the Pine Mountain Trail, they never included much of it. This loop was of interest in that over 5 miles of it is on the PMT.

For those unfamiliar with the PMT, it is a 23 mile trail following the Pine Mountain ridge, a surprisingly high elevation for this far South. Its design and layout are very reminiscent of the AT, other than the lack of huge elevation changes.

While driving through the park on my way to the trailhead, I quickly discovered that Pine Mountain received significantly more snow that we did in Atlanta, and most of it was still there. All of the snow was helping to keep the temperature down, but it had managed to climb to a balmy 24 degrees at that point. After I parked, loaded up with my gear, I quickly discovered a problem – I could not find the trail for the snow! After wandering around briefly, I discovered one feature of snow that would benefit me for the entire hike – it leaves lingering footprints. Thankfully, some fellow diehards had preceded me. I realized that given conditions, we could all be wrong, but I discarded that notion when I ran into a group of Scouts within the first half mile.

I discovered before too long into the trip that hiking in snow requires significantly more energy than hiking in normal conditions. I was working pretty hard to keep traction, and had to lift my feet more to slog through it. While I don’t normally use a walking stick, I picked up one pretty quickly just to help with traction. It was of course harder to follow the trail, but I was blessed to have footprints to follow the entire way. The only time a got disoriented was when I took a brief detour across a stream to a camp site for a bathroom break (not a fun experience at 24 degrees).

With nothing but snow for mile after mile, it is harder to keep track of your progress. Fortunately, the PMT has a marker and stack of rocks every mile. Further, all trail junctions are well marked, and have mileage listed.

Given my somewhat legalistic background, I had an occasional twinge of guilt about not finding some church to attend, even as it seems that more than half of the ones in Atlanta had cancelled. I began to recall some recent reading in Paul Gardner’s commentary on Ephesians, and thinking about how our culture equates church with a building and formal service. Don’t get me wrong – I do believe assembling every week corporately as believers is important. Ephesians however makes it clear that the church is the uniting of God’s people through the world in his service. Paul Gardner feels it is very important to see the church in this context, and it makes sense to me.

I finished in 3:38, much longer than it would normally take me to cover 8 miles, but given conditions, I was pleased with my effort. I would not want to hike in snow every week, but it is definitely an exhilarating and worthwhile experience.