Georgia Natural Wonder #187 - Sosebee Cove. 966

[Top Row Dawg]

Sosebee Cove

Sosebee Cove was a favorite stopping point for Arthur Woody on the road he built, now designated Georgia State Highway 180. Located in the Blue Ridge Ranger District, this 175-acre tract of large, cove hardwood timber is set aside as a memorial to Arthur Woody who served as Ranger from 1918 to 1945. Ranger Woody, the "barefoot ranger" loved this peaceful cove and negotiated its purchase for the United States Forest Service. Located near Blairsville, Georgia, Sosebee Cove has a rich diversity of shade tolerant trees, shrubs, and wildflowers. A variety of beautiful wildflowers abound in the area, and the large Yellow Poplars are said to be the best-second-growth stand of the species in the nation. White-tailed deer, black bears, and ruffed grouse also might be seen.



I had this cued up for posting months ago but I got sidetracked on Bartow County, Douglas County, and the Chattahoochee River. Only 13 spots left in the top 200 so I want to return to a spot where I took a lot of pictures back when my dog Hendrix was a spry young hiking buddy. I read in the Sherpa Guide that there was a boulder field high above Highway 180, and you know me, I like big boulders and I can not lie.



Now most people park in the few spaces along Highway 180, and walk down the stairs to the Sosebee Cove Trail.



Sosebee Cove is a maturing second growth forest, although to many a visitor the area has a feeling of being old-growth.



The mesic forest is characterized by very large yellow poplars (Liriodendron tulipifera)


Yellow Poplar Cove.

and yellow buckeyes (Aesculus flava).


The famous giant Yellow Buckeye Tree at Sosebee Cove.

There are many other tree species that are more characteristic of forests to the north that are part of Sosebee Cove forest. Species include sweet birch (Betula lenta),



American Basswood (Tilia americana),



Mountain Maple (Acer spicatum),



Striped Maple (Acer pensylvanicum)



and the rarely encountered Yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea).


Google for Yellowwood.

Commonly encountered flowering small trees and shrubs include flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), and several viburnums (Viburnum spp.). Other tree species that one may encounter are cucumber magnolia (Magnolia acuminata), northern red oak (Quercus rubra), white ash (Fraxinus americana), and yellow birch (Betula allegheniensis).


Cucumber Magnolia (Never heard it called that) Pine cone does look like a cucumber.

Viewing Information: With its north-facing, mesic forests Sosebee Cove has a rich display of wildflowers encompassing the diversity of spring ephemerals to the autumn glory of goldenrods, asters, and other late-blooming wildflowers. Species commonly encountered in the spring include Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), large-flowered bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora), Solomon’s-seal (Polygonatum biflorum), showy orchid (Galearis spectabilis), blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) purple toadshade (Trillium cuneatum) and large-flowered trillium (Trillium grandiflorum). During the high days of summer, wildflowers such as Indian pipes (Monotropa uniflora), scarlet beebalm (Monarda didyma), skullcaps (Scutellaria spp.), American lopseed (Phyrma leptostchya), and false nettle (Boehmeria cylindracea) are commonly encountered. As the seasons transition toward late summer and early autumn the delicate blues of woodland asters (Aster spp.), the yellows of goldenrods and sunflowers (Solidago spp and Helianthus spp.) dominate the landscape at Sosebee Cove. Ferns are also commonly encountered across the slopes of Sosebee Cove. Maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum), southern lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina), marginal wood fern (Dryopteris marginalis), hay-scented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula) and cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) are just a few of the rich diversity of ferns documented from Sosebee Cove.


Some of today's wildflowers (top l-r then clockwise) Yellow Star Grass,Wild Geranium, White Erect Trillium, Flame Azalea.

Safety First: Both forests receive high recreational use throughout the summer, and traffic along the forest roads can be heavy, especially near developed facilities. Be especially watchful when driving on GA 180 on the way to Sosebee as it is narrow and extremely winding, with numerous bicyclists and motorcycle riders sharing the road.



Weather in the southern Appalachians is generally mild but wet, with abundant rainfall throughout the year. Higher elevations, however, can experience cold, wet weather at any time during the year. As a result, adequate rain gear and warm clothes are recommended, even during the summer. In addition, trails in the region are often rocky, and require supportive shoes and sure footing.



Although the area contains a stream, all surface water should be treated before drinking or cooking. Carry and drink plenty of fluids, and use sunscreen on exposed skin, especially at higher elevations. Biting insects are generally not a problem. Mosquitoes and ticks are present, but usually not a nuisance. Both mosquito and tick bites can transmit diseases, however, and appropriate measures, such as long clothing and repellants, should be used. Gnats are ubiquitous during the growing season, and often become a nuisance, due to both their numbers as well as their persistence. Please take necessary precautions while hiking outdoors.



All Trails

Sosebee Cove Trail is a 0.4 mile loop trail located near Suches, Georgia and is good for all skill levels. The trail is primarily used for hiking and is best used from March until May. Dogs are also able to use this trail but must be kept on leash.



It's a nice short walk if you have young children. Pulled over from our drive to take the dog for a quick walk. On the weekends you will be overwhelmed with the sound of motorcycles on the road above you.



Description: A beautiful high-elevation north-facing cove with unique flora and fauna, this easily accessible site will inspire the visitor with its huge buckeyes and tulip trees. Other species characteristic of more northern latitudes include basswood, black birch, striped and mountain maple, and the rare yellow wood tree. Impressive boulder fields offer a profusion of spring wildflowers, mosses, and ferns. A loop trail through the cove makes for a rewarding trip.



Viewing Information: Cove forests are known for their rich variety of salamanders. Here you will find the seal salamander, purple salamander, black-bellied salamander, and two-lined salamander. Creek chubs, river chubs, and saffron shiners make the cold-clear stream their home. Spring bird watching can be excellent. American redstarts, rose-breasted grosbeaks, Kentucky warblers, hooded warblers, and black and white warblers are common sites. White-tailed deer, black bears, and ruffed grouse also might be seen.


American Redstart - Rose-Breasted Grosbeak - Kentucky Warblers

Directions: From Vogel State Park, travel north on US Hwy. 129 for about .25 miles. Turn left (west) on GA Hwy. 180 and travel 4-5 miles. Sosebee Cove is marked and loop trail begins on the right side of road.

Tangent on Arthur Woody

We mentioned at the beginning of this post how Sosebee Cove was a favorite stopping point for Arthur Woody on the road he built, now designated Georgia State Highway 180. Located in the Blue Ridge Ranger District, it is set aside as a memorial to Arthur Woody who served as Ranger from 1918 to 1945. Ranger Woody, the "barefoot ranger" loved this peaceful cove and negotiated its purchase for the United States Forest Service. Now we may have touched on Arthur Woody in several other post, but we can't come to his Cove without a full blown tangent, if only as a reminder. In 1895 the last deer in North Georgia was killed, ironically, by Arthur Woody's father in Fannin County. At the time of his birth, much of the Georgia mountains were barren, stripped by lumber companies that found it cheaper to leave the land they stripped than to replant trees.



Woody grew up a farmer's son in Union County, Georgia. Early in his life he joined a Forest Service crew as an axe-man, and in 1915 became a guard in the Service. By this time he was advocating that the federal government increase its purchases of land in the North Georgia mountains. In 1918 the federal government combined these holdings as the Cherokee National Forest, part of which extended into North Georgia. A short time later additional land the government purchased was consolidated with portions of the Cherokee into the Georgia National Forest(later renamed the Chattahoochee National Forest) and Arthur Woody and Roscoe Nicholson became its first Forest Rangers.



Known as "Ranger" or "Kingfish", Woody's exploits are legendary. He would make false bear tracks to catch poachers. When outlaws tried to hide in his forest Woody would track them and bring them in. And he had to use his head to get past the typical bureaucratic snafus that Washington would put in his way.



One frequently told story about the ranger is his method to get a road built from Suches to Wolfpen Gap. Washington said they only had money to improve existing roads, not to build new ones. Woody and some friends cut a path through the forest from the gap to Suches and called it a road. Then "Kingfish" got Washington to begin making improvements on the path until a paved, graded road was built (Hwy. 180).



The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 set aside land mostly in the West, for conservation. In 1911 the Weeks Act did the same thing for the Southeast. Arthur Woody was a man who did not let his country flavor get in his way. His disdain for his uniform was well known. He often left his shirt open and the top of his trousers unbuttoned(he used suspenders to hold them up). "Ranger" frequently went barefoot. He left North Georgia College after 3 days. However, his vision helped create today's North Georgia mountains. He proposed managing the resources to everyone's benefit. He successfully urged(some would say coerced) the federal government to make significant additional purchases of land in North Georgia. In the midst of the depression the CCC(Civilian Conservation Corps) began to greatly improve the area around Suches thanks to the ranger, and he was responsible for the original proposal for a Visitor's Center at Brasstown Bald.


Ranger Woody still atop Brasstown Bald.

In 1936, the Georgia National forest was reorganized into two districts, the Tallulah District managed by "Nick" Nicholson and the Blue Ridge District managed by Arthur Woody. It was renamed to the Chattahoochee National Forest and Wally Prater supervised the rangers from an office in Gainesville.



Outdoors men in Georgia are well familiar with Arthur Woody. He began stocking the creeks of the Chattahoochee National Forest with fish, introducing non-native species such as speckled trout that are favored by fishermen. In 1927 he started restocking deer in the North Georgia mountains with his own money. Purchasing deer from a passing show and rounding up more in the mountains of western North Carolina Woody's neighbors were amazed when they soon saw large bucks leaping over fences again. Woody suffered a serious depression in 1941 when the state of Georgia re-opened hunting season on the deer he had restocked, many of which he still called by name. He died in 1946, according to some never having fully recovered. Locals who knew him and his fondness for these animals say with a chuckle and a sideways shake of the head, "Mr. Woody was kinda funny 'bout them deer."



Sherpa Guide and Boulderfields

Boulderfields. Lying just down slope from the summit of most of our peaks are boulderfields, which fill the top part of north- and northwest-facing coves, particularly if there is seeping or running water. The jumbled mass of boulders has resulted from ice-wedging during the Pleistocene period, perhaps 20,000 years ago. Boulderfields seldom extend below 3,200 feet.



Although the moss-covered boulders are difficult to walk across, they are a photographer's delight and are most photogenic after leaf fall.



In spite of the rocky nature of this environment, spring wildflowers are abundant. Trees such as yellow birch and basswood may occur. Perhaps the "best" boulderfield is on the north face of  Tray Mountain GNW #13  between the summit and Corbin Creek Road.


Tray Mountain.

The one most accessible by car lies just above the parking area at Sosebee Cove.


So I read that and I spent a whole half day in the slight rain with my dog Hendrix, all alone. All of these last half of post images are my photos and attempted panoramic shots.

North aspect cove boulder fields are a rare habitat in Georgia. They occur at moderate to high elevations on certain mountains within the Blue Ridge Province. Often plant species with a more northerly distributions are able to exist this far south because of the temperature moderation created by the habitat.


I went straight up hill and crawled across the green moss boulders a few hundred yards up hill.

Our north Georgia mountains are masses of ancient rock on which life has but a tenuous foothold. A short history of the area's geology helps us appreciate nature's management of such finite entities as water, air, and soil in such remarkably beautiful surroundings.


Boulders get bigger, the higher we climbed.

Moreover, greater knowledge of the function of ecological systems like the southern Appalachian bioregion is essential for the survival of man as a part of - not apart from - the natural world. This understanding, transcending economic and political considerations, now becomes the major bridge uniting peoples of the earth.


Deep thoughts.

Compared with the youthful Rockies or Himalayas, Georgia's mountains are hoary with age. Some of the basement rocks, or roots, of the early Blue Ridge formed over a billion years ago. The bulk of our mountains, however, was derived from ancient marine sediments between 200 and 450 million years ago.



These sediments, such as sands and silts, were transformed or metamorphosed into the hard rock that forms the backbone of the Blue Ridge. This was accomplished by uplift, heat, and pressure resulting from enormous forces generated by the collision of North America with other drifting continents.


Kept climbing toward the ridge top.

Look at any rock face exposed in highway cuts such as at Hog Pen Gap on the Richard Russell Scenic Highway or at Woodall Shoals on the Chattooga River. Here it can be seen how heat and pressure deep within the earth caused near-molten rock to flow and fold into visible contortions. In the western part of the Blue Ridge, the rocks were less metamorphosed by these processes.


The big Boulders were just off the top of the mountain.

Least changed of all were the thick beds of sediments in northwest Georgia. Here, sands hardened into sandstone, and mud or silt into shale, while the shells of minute marine life became limestone. These rocks show little of the folding and distortion that you see east of the great fault line between Chatsworth and Cartersville which divides the Valley and Ridge from the Western Blue Ridge.



Regardless of bedrock type, however, most forest communities form soils that are remarkably similar. Normally, about 22 minerals occur in most rock types; two or three others are supplied by atmospheric fallout. These minerals are carefully concentrated and recycled by the forest.



Occasionally, where carbonate rocks, such as limestone, outcrop near the surface, unique plants grow and require lots of calcium, as at Pigeon Mountain or Panther Creek. Sometimes, when rocks are low in some essential minerals, as at Buck Creek, a peculiar pine barren community develops.



Stripped of their forest cover, our Blue Ridge Mountains would resemble Stone Mountain. The thin skin of soil that hides their nakedness is made possible only by plant life, aided by abundant rainfall. Unless one has seen the bare rock where the entire side of a mountain has slid off, or gazed into Toxaway Gorge, it is hard to understand how important the vegetation cover is and how powerful the force of water is.



While collisions with other continents slowly raised the Appalachians, rains kept eroding them almost as fast as they were uplifted. Incredibly, geologists claim that a thickness of from 5 to 10 miles of Appalachian mountain rock has disintegrated and washed downhill in the last 300 million years. These sediments formed south Georgia, the coastal land forms and much of the continental shelf. Rains from the sun-powered water cycle are still trying to wash our mountains away, but nature has developed a remarkably tough and protective forest cover that slows down this process.



Ironically, the mountain forest cannot exist without this 5 to 8 feet of water that pours down in a single year. The mountain forests are expert in conserving and managing this precious substance through many millennia of trial and error. The forest operates as a soil-building and water-holding device, powered by solar energy. The excess water not used by the system runs off as streams and rivers which we can, with wisdom, use ourselves. While there are mountain "products" other than water, we must never lose sight of the primary value of the mountains—the cost-free (to us) management of rock, soil, water, air, life, and sun energy. Anything that man does there must be prefaced with the question, "Are we compromising or damaging these vital life-support functions?"



Our mountains have been forested for at least 2 million years. Unglaciated during this time, they have stood as temperate-zone refuges for a diverse assemblage of terrestrial plants and animals, perhaps unequalled outside of the tropical rainforest. Biologically speaking, a trip up a 6,000-foot mountain is equivalent to driving 1,000 miles north.



Because of this, many species of plants and animals can live in our mountains, especially in north-facing coves where it is always moist and cool. Once, boreal spruce-fir forests, such as now clothe much of Canada, covered our Georgia mountains, with alpine tundra on the highest peaks. When the climate warmed, these cold-adapted environments disappeared. Along the highest elevations of the Georgia Blue Ridge, they left behind some ice-age animal life. Relicts such as the red-back vole and perhaps the red squirrel.


All this work to get up here and had to get too close to rock to see in fog.

From the top of our highest peaks, as far as the eye can see, mountain slopes appear to be clothed in a uniform sea of green. Actually, this vista is not at all uniform, for what one sees is a remarkable mosaic of various combinations of rock, soil, plants, and animals organized into specific environments. Some of these combinations are considered by ecologists as communities, associations, or forest types. Each is adapted to certain slopes, temperatures, soil depths, compass exposures, and rainfall.


Jesus that was a hard hike straight up scrambling.

Sherpa Guide described the other major natural environments that occur in the Georgia mountains and are often encountered in the Sosebee Cove.



Cove Forests. Below the northern hardwoods is the more extensive cove hardwood forest. There is a greater diversity of trees here, including various oaks, tulip poplar, ash, silverbell, and magnolia. Before the chestnut blight of the 1930s, many cove forests were full of chestnut trees. Since tulip poplars are present in most cove forests and have wind-borne seeds, they were able to seed in on the death of the chestnut.


Valley of Giants Cooper Creek.

Poplar also follows over-intensive logging, as below the parking area in Sosebee Cove. The whitish stumps of dead chestnut can still be seen in many coves. Old mountain pastures often reverted to almost pure stands of poplar. Near-original old growth cove forest can be seen in the northeast sector of the Cooper Creek Scenic Area (GNW #111). There, the dead chestnut logs were removed and sawed up on the spot. Some of the old poplars, some 18 feet in circumference, still remain, standing among huge white and red oaks. While shrubs are limited in cove forests, a variety of herbs is present, depending on soil depth and moisture.



Directions: From Blairsville, GA take U.S. 129 and 19 south for about 9.5 miles. Turn right (west) on to GA 180. Go two miles to the Sosebee parking area on the right (north side) of the highway.

So there you have it, can't find any images of Sosebee Cove Boulder Fields on Internet, so this is an HOTD exclusive, the last half of this post. It sure was a chore in the cold and rain straight up. Today's GNW Gals are Sosbee Cove Sobe Water Models.




Sobe Body Painted Gals.