Georgia Natural Wonder #71 – Unnamed Peak on Wolfpen Ridge - Union County. 585

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #71 – Unnamed Peak on Wolfpen Ridge - Union County

Wolfpen Ridge is a ridge in the Blue Ridge Mountains in U.S. state of Georgia that runs south to north along the boundary between Towns and Union counties. Brasstown Bald (GNW #20), the highest point in Georgia, is located at the northern end of the ridge (elevation: 4,786 feet). At the southern end of the ridge, there is an unnamed peak with an elevation of 4,561 feet, which makes it the fifth-highest point in Georgia.


Looking down from Brasstown Bald, across the parking lot, to the unnamed 5th highest peak in Georgia.

The trail begins on the south end of the Brasstown Bald parking area at a break in the fence between the two areas of picnic tables and climbs the unnamed knob visible from the parking area.


Looking back up to Brasstown Bald from parking lot.

Over the years we have been hiking this trail we have seen it go from a well-maintained trail to overgrown in places, and back to well-maintained. Since this is a AT access trail, it is blazed with blue rectangles.


TRD hiked this trail just yesterday with my parents set up at the picnic table and me along with my son trekked up the peak.

Leaving the Brasstown Bald parking lot and following Wolfpen Ridge, the footpath begins with an easy-to-moderate climb (easy at the bottom, moderate closer to the top of the unnamed knob).



A big sign tells you right off the bat all about encountering bears.



So glad I was able to hike this and replace the missing pictures I had on post.



Plus not many pictures of this mountain, so we have plenty now.



Taller than Blood Mountain or Tray Mountain, so pretty cool to do this without nearly as much effort.



The rocky soil is occasionally root-filled, and watch for rock-outcrops near the trail.



This trail rocks!



Notice the rhododendron at the beginning of the hike and compare it to the rhododendron at the top, shorter and less full, similar in many ways to the changes in flora that occur on the trail to the top of Brasstown Bald.



Looks like park Service wrestling with rhododendron.



Nature everywhere. Then you come to a large primitive camp spot.



At 0.5 miles there is a scenic view on the left, right at the camp spot.



Neat view, neat camp spot.




View from peak.

TRD at the peak.





There may have been higher ground back left from the view and camp spot, but that required a bushwhack I was not prepared to do in my flip flops.



Oh man this was an easy Natural Wonder. Next time you visit Brasstown Bald don’t forget the 5th highest Mountain in Georgia is right there too.



Wow this oversized image really show Wolfpen Ridge from Brasstown Bald. Hard to believe this 5th highest Mountain has no name.



One and a half pages, dang it, may as well tangent on history of Union County and town of Blairsville while we are up here.

Union County, located in northeast Georgia at the southern tip of the Blue Ridge Mountains, is the state's eighty-third county and comprises 323 square miles. Its northern border is shared with North Carolina. In 1832 the state legislature created Union County from Cherokee County. John Thomas, a state representative for the area, suggested the name "Union." The western part of the county was annexed by Fannin County in 1854, and in 1856 the southern tip was given to Gilmer County and an eastern section went to Towns County. Most of the first white settlers of the area were Virginians who traveled to Georgia through the mountain passages of the Carolinas.



County Seat and Communities

The county seat is Blairsville, incorporated in 1835. Old Union County Courthouse, built in 1899 and restored by numerous local volunteers, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.



Today it houses the Union County Historical Society. The current courthouse is away from the town square and is the county's fourth. It was built in 1978 as an annex to the Union County Office Building, which was built in 1976.


Old and New.

The town is named after Revolutionary War veteran James Blair. Oh man this is worth a tangent - James “Jimmy” Blair was an American soldier and politician. In 1778, when James was 17, he enlisted in the American Revolution Blair served in the American Revolutionary War as an orderly sergeant, ensign and Indian spy. Among others, he fought in The Battle of Sumter’s Defeat (Fishing Creek), The Battle of Ramsour’s Mill, and served as a spy in The Raft Swamp Campaign.


Big rebel Win at Kings Mountain.

He was an express rider who alerted troops of the coming Battle of King's Mountain. He was wounded, but completed the ride and served with Colonel Benjamin Cleveland during the battle. The gathering of The Kings’ Mountain Men was made possible by sending these riders in all directions to notify patriots of the place of rendezvous. A poem was written about this ride by Thomas Trotwood Moore. He was referred to as the "Paul Revere of the South."



The Ride of the Rebel

The race of the rebel, wilderness run –
Hark to the time and when –
The race for a nation just begun
In the scattered homes of men,
You will find it not on the gilded page
To the pampered steed of fame,
You will find it not in this hireling age
Where they run for money and shame,
But on King’s Mountain’s starlit stage
‘Twill live in deathless name.

Over the border the British came,
Their jackets red as the sun,
City and hamlet had felt the flame
From the flash of the Red Coat’s gun.
Over the border Ferguson rode –
He never rode back again,
For Jimmy Blair his horse bestrode
And galloped with might and main.

To Cleveland and to Campbell’s tent,
O’er hill and o’er valley he sped,
And he roused the patriots as he went
As Gabriel will rouse the dead:
“Go! For your country’s life!” he said
And away like a ghost he was gone,
Riding from morn to midnight deep,
From midnight on to the morn –
O, never was a race like that,
Since gallant steed was born!

The moon rose up to see it,
And the great red-yellow eye
Of the morning star new lustre took
As the game boy galloped by.
The lurking savage hid in his path,
The Tory lay in his road –
He swam the river with a ball in his breast
And gained the fort* at the ford.

And Shelby came, and Williams,
And Cleveland, and Sevier,
Fifteen hundred rifles
In the morning answered – “Here!”
And Ferguson was routed
With all his Tory clan;
The rebels rushed their crested heights
And took them to a man,
They turned the tide of war that day,
Which, turning, swept the land
Of every British musket,
Of every Tory band.

The race of the rebel, wilderness run –
Hark to the time and when –
The race for a nation just begun
In the scattered homes of men,
For Fame that day rode horse of gray
And Glory guided the rein –
The purse? Our glorious country – say,
Will it ever be run again?

- John Trotwood Moore


Ferguson shot at Kings Mountain.

After the war, James served as a captain during an Indian war and was appointed Indian agent for the Cherokee Nation. He became a colonel while serving in an Indian War. Also, as a surveyor, he was responsible for settling some boundary lines with the Indians; in The Treaty of July 8, 1817, he surveyed the line that separated (Habersham) from Indian Lands, which became known as “The Blair Line”. He was credited with helping settle and lay out (Union) Georgia, where the county seat of Blairsville is named for him.



He eventually moved to Franklin County, Georgia, settling near Clarkesville (Habersham) Georgia, where he was a Senator and U.S. House of Representatives from Franklin and later Habersham counties in the Legislature for twenty-seven years in succession. He served over 20 years in the Georgia state legislature. He relocated to Pickens County, Alabama, in 1836 and died there 5 days after his wife in 1839. He was buried in Old Mt Moriah Cemetery. She is buried in Old Mt. Moriah Cemetery in (Pickens) Alabama, but his gravesite has not been discovered.


Family has laid a marker.

Although the neighboring city of Dahlonega was known as the first site of gold in the United States, the Blairsville area was known to have the purest gold in the mountains. Assayers in Washington, D.C. could tell by looking that gold ore was from the Coosa Mines because it was “the yellowest gold” submitted and its brilliant color set it apart.



Blairsville is the only incorporated town in Union County. Unincorporated communities include Neels Gap and Suches. Neels Gap was named after W. R. Neel, the chief engineer of the survey for the American Scenic Highway, which came through the gap. The Cherokee Indians called the gap Walasi-yi, meaning "the place of Walasi, the Great Frog," which led early white settlers to call it Frogtown Pass.


Neels gap, the only place the Appalachian Trail passes through a man made structure.

Suches, possibly named after a local family, is the site of the Chattahoochee Forest National Fish Hatchery. Woody Gap School, one of the state's few remaining isolated rural schools that incorporates kindergarten through grade twelve, is located in Suches.



Images of Suches.



Several places in Union County, past and present, acquired their names from the Cherokees. One of the most romanticized is Choestoe, from the Cherokee tsistu-yi, or "rabbit place." The area is located about seven miles southeast of Blairsville.





The Nottely River, a tributary of the Hiawassee River, comes from the name of the Indian village Naduhli, which means "daring horseman."



History

When it was created, Union County was one of the most remote areas of Georgia. Its land, which was available through the Georgia land lottery system, was not thought to be very valuable and attracted only those with fairly meager financial resources. Growth of the county was slow until the 1840s, when roads and bridges were built, providing residents with access to agricultural markets.


Smith Bridge Dooley Road Nottely River

The county's first industries were of the type that support agricultural endeavors. Blacksmiths, gunsmiths, millwrights, tanners, and wheelwrights operated an iron foundry, distilleries, and mills of various types.



During the Civil War (1861-65), Union County's residents remained pro-Union, and their delegates to the 1861 secession convention voted not to secede. However, once war was declared, many county residents showed loyalty to the South by joining the ranks of the Confederate forces. (This is attested to by a modern war memorial in Blairsville that lists ninety-eight Confederate soldiers but only three Union soldiers from the county.)



After the war, railroads built lines to communities close to Union County, including Gainesville and Culberson, North Carolina, enabling county farmers to expand distribution of their commodities. The first paved road in Union County was completed in 1926 and ran from Cleveland to the North Carolina border.



Tourism was given a boost after the U.S. government bought 31,000 acres of forest, spread across Fannin, Gilmer, Lumpkin, and Union counties. It was named the Chattahoochee National Forest in 1937.



Encompassing nearly two-thirds of the county, the Chattahoochee National Forest has winding trails that lead visitors through scenic mountains, rushing rivers, and cascading waterfalls. This is where you can step back in time with nature and walk where the Cherokee Indians once lived.

Economy

Union County remains rural, and agriculture and tourism are the mainstays of its economy. The Mountain Research and Education Center, the University of Georgia's oldest agricultural extension station, was established in 1930 on 415 acres south of Blairsville. Through its educational programs, which taught local farmers how to diversify their crops, the station was instrumental to the growth of the county's economy.



In 1938 the center became one of the founders of the Georgia–TVA Council, which was formed to promote the use of yield-boosting fertilizers in the area. This development led to a Union County farmer's becoming the first in the state to produce 100 bushels of corn per acre. One of the center's notable achievements was its development of a superior bell pepper, which local farmers grew for the Joseph Campbell Company.



The Zell Miller Mountain Parkway (Georgia State Highway 515) is named for Georgia governor and U.S. senator Zell Miller, part of the Appalachian Developmental Highway, was completed in 1991 and has greatly strengthened the place of tourism in the Union County economy.



The highway makes it easier for county residents to commute to metropolitan Atlanta for employment. The new highway also led to a boom in retirement housing, providing construction jobs to Union County residents and bringing in a large contingent of retirees.



People and Places

Noteworthy residents have included Joseph E. Brown, Georgia's governor during the Civil War; Byron Herbert Reece, an poet and novelist; and Arthur Woody, "the barefoot ranger." Woody was one of Georgia's first forest rangers, working as a ranger from 1918 to 1942, and is considered the state's first conservationist.


Brown - Reece - Woody

Many points of interest are scattered throughout the county. Blood Mountain Archaeological Area, the site of a battle between the Creek and Cherokee Indians, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.



Blood Mountain Boulders is a popular rock-climbing site in Suches.


Boulder right by shelter on top of Blood Mountain.



All these boulder images are at the top of Blood Mountain.



Brasstown Ranger District includes 157,000 acres within the Chattahoochee National Forest, with hiking trails through a variety of forest types. The district also includes Brasstown Bald, Georgia's highest mountain (4,784 feet); the mountain is partly in Union County and partly in Towns County.



The Trackrock Archaeological Area includes ancient Indian petroglyphs within its fifty-two acres and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.



The Byron Herbert Reece Farm and Heritage Center, nine miles south of Blairsville, includes the house that Reece built for his parents, his study, a barn, and the home of his sister. Three miles south of the home place is the Byron Herbert Reece Memorial Park, with hiking trails and picnic facilities.



Lake Nottely, a 4,180-acre lake built by the Tennessee Valley Authority, is used for recreation, power generation, and flood control.



Vogel State Park, Georgia's second oldest state park, encompasses 233 acres south of Blairsville and is located on Lake Trahlyta.



The Union County Heritage Center encompasses 1.8 acres in downtown Blairsville and includes the restored Butt-Mock Home, built in 1906.



And the John Payne Cabin, built in 1861.



According to the 2010 U.S. census, the population of Union County was 21,356, an increase from the 2000 population of 17,289.



The 6th and 7th highest mountains in Georgia were covered earlier with Blood Mountain at (GNW #12) and Tray Mountain at (GNW #13). We travel to the 8th highest Georgia peak on Friday. Today's GNW Gal is the Green Bean Teen Queen.