Backpacking at Mistletoe State Park

One of my goals I made recently was to visit and hike in all the state parks in Georgia. So this weekend I drove out to Mistletoe State Park in Appling, GA to hike the back country trail. I had scouted a couple of the other trails a few months ago and was eager to try out this one. I met Kirsten a fellow Trail Dame and my old friend SHOE at the office and we headed off to our site. Mistletoe is a beautiful park, the regular campground has amazing lakeside sites and there are lots of options for camping. This hike was mainly to scout the back country sites so I can lead a TD trip there at a later date.

I have hiked quite a bit with Shoe, in fact I have probably hiked more miles with her than anyone else, but we figured it had been at least 2 years since we had hiked together. This is really unacceptable, and I am going to have to make sure that we get out more often. Funny thing though, once on the trail we fell into the same rhythm as always and used the time to reminisce and catch up on each other's lives. Kirsten was such a joy as well, she acts all shy and all that, but once she gets going, she is just hilarious. She kept us in stitches the whole trip.

The trail is interesting, but the maps are terrible. (note to any hike leaders that read this....this is exactly why we require scouting hikes before leading a TD trip). We made our way down the Cliatt Creek Nature trail and hooked up with the Rock Dam trail which would take us to our camp. Once on the Rock Dam trail, we moved right along until the trail crossed the creek. It was quite confusing, there were blazes all over the place, but they went is several directions and it was very difficult to follow. We actually took the right direction first, but I kinda felt like we didn't so we turned around. After consulting the map for the 50th time, we all agreed that we were probably right the first time and we turned around. The first feature according to the map was a rock outcropping that is part of Stone Mountain near Atlanta. I kinda thought it looked like a dolphin.

We hiked on and arrived at camp after a couple of hours. I quickly set up my hammock, and helped Kirsten get her hammock hung for the first time. The afternoon was spent talking and just enjoying each others company. For dinner, SHOE had frozen in some sausages and I brought skewers to cook them on, so despite temps in the high 80's and almost 100% humidity we built a fire to cook our dinner. Oh, how could I forget, she also brought ingredients to make homemade guacamole, which was delicious!! Thanks SHOE for taking such good care of our bellies!

Indian Wormroot

I slept like a baby again in my Warbonnet, and woke up feeling so refreshed and relaxed. We had breakfast, packed up and hit the trail by 9:00. We finished the Rock Dam loop, crossed the creek again, and found our way back to the cars via the Cliatt Nature Trail. I had a terrific time, with great friends, and we capped it off with a calorie infested lunch at the Cracker Barrel. I would highly recommend this trail to backpacking beginners. I will be leading a TD trip here in the fall. Thanks SHOE and Kirsten for such a good time.


You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through- Rosalyn Carter.