The walk is relatively flat, and occasionally takes you up-close with an 80-year-old TVA impoundment.
Photo Above: The Lake Nottely Improvement Association donated picnic tables.
Photo Courtesy of Leonard M. and Laurie Adkins.
With Laurie having dislodged a temporary tooth crown, we pulled into the parking lot of Smile Blue Ridge (Georgia). We were greeted by an imposing 12-foot statute wearing what resembled blue medical scrubs, a wide grin spread across a bearded face and a giant toothbrush held in front of him.
“Hmm,” I told Laurie, “it must be Paul Bunyan when he was a dentist during one of his breaks as a lumberman.” The obliging receptionist inside said they could accommodate Laurie in about three hours.
This, of course, meant we had time for a walk and headed to nearby Lake Nottely, created in 1942 by the Tennessee Valley Authority as a flood control project. That has given its shoreline more than eight decades to recover from any disturbances the construction of the dam and lake made to the land. In 2018, the TVA and the Union County government created a pathway permitting access to the woodlands close to the water’s edge.
The trail, sometimes a wide dirt road and other times coursing along a single lane track, often brought us within a few feet of the water to gaze across the lake’s expanse reflecting the clarity of puffy white clouds drifting across a blue summer sky.
When I turned my gaze from the lake, I found two plants that have always intrigued me growing upon the forest floor. Here were carpets of running cedar, a small, evergreen clubmoss that rarely gets above six to eight inches in height. Yet, its origins go back more than 300 million years, to when its ancestors grew to be more than 100 feet tall. These super-sized plants, along with equally large ferns, covered much of North America. For millions of years they grew, died and decomposed. Layer upon layer then compressed into the coal we use today. I’m fascinated by the fact that, by reacting to the changing world around them through evolution, these plants have shrunk in size and are now connected by stems that stretch along the ground or just below the surface.
The other plant was Indian cucumber root which, despite growing up to two feet tall, has only two whorls of leaves, one at the base and the other at the top where a small white flower blossoms.
On the return loop higher above the shoreline, we met a couple from Charleston, South Carolina, that said they had come in search of pink lady slippers seen on a previous visit, but “I guess we’re too late in the year this time.”
A little later, with Laurie’s reinstalled crown in place, we pulled out of the dentist’s parking lot and I looked in the rear view mirror. I could have sworn Paul winked at us, but, then again, it may have been just the shadow of a passing cloud.
Leonard has written 20 books on the outdoors and travel. Find out more at habitualhiker.com.
When to Go
The Walk: A moderately easy (barely 300 feet total vertical rise) 2.5-mile circuit beside Lake Nottely in northern Georgia.
Getting There: Drive US 76 eastward for 6 miles from US 76 and GA 5’s intersection in Blue Ridge. Make a left onto Loving Road, continue 9.3 miles to another left onto GA 325 where trailhead parking is on the right in .2 mile.
More Information: A trail map may be found at tva.com/Environment/Recreation/TVA-Trails.
A Meal with the View
The View Grill and Restaurant in Blairsville, a short drive from Lake Nottely, is a bit more upscale than its name seems to imply. Sharing an appetizer of conch fritters, Laurie and I enjoyed our dinners of Pacific flounder and flat iron steak (menu changes occasionally) while overlooking the fairways of Butternut Creek Golf Course and deep-green ridgelines of the southern Blue Ridge Mountains.
Find out more about Leonard’s walking and hiking adventures at habitualhiker.com.
The story above first appeared in our November / December 2023 issue.
