The World Is Too Much With Me: A Visit to John's Mountain and Keown Falls

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
--William Wordsworth

Spring Break came early to my school this year. We were off last week, and I was ready for the break. Teaching is a wearying profession. I do not like to gripe about my chosen profession. I chose to teach and, considering the many benefits of the career, it seems disingenuous to gripe about my every little frustration. Too many teachers seem to have received certification in elementary complaining and secondary whining and can see nothing but the dark side of teaching. They poison the staff room and the blogosphere with bitterness, frustration, and anger. I have learned to avoid the AJC education blog and certain other blogs for this reason. At times I have had to avoid certain teachers for fear that I might become, as my former boss put it, "a disgruntled teacher."

Putting that gripe aside for now, the exhaustion that comes with teaching compounds itself with each pointless meeting, failed lesson plan, nasty e-mail. Every day is a five-hour performance and must be one of commanding a captive audience. A teacher can feel his normal happily gruntled self on the road to losing his gruntle. Students perceive this and a break is often the only thing that can stave off disgruntledness.

So I took one day of my Spring Break and went to the Northwest Georgia mountains. Preferring the Northeast Georgia mountains, I have never spent much time exploring Northwest Georgia. Suspecting that they must be feeling my neglect, and desiring to see something new, I conducted about five minutes of intensive internet research and headed up I-75.

Even when trying to get away from it all, I can't stop thinking about finding things for class so I first made a brief stop at a little antique mall in Calhoun (exit 315, turn right and it is immediately on the right). I purchased a Max Boot book, and headed northwest into the mountains.

I ended up parking at the top of John's Mountain. At the end of a long gravel road is the small parking lot, but I had no trouble finding a parking space as I had the only car there. The trailhead lacked any of the typical directions, mileage, trail information, or bear warnings. Instead there is a stunning overlook facing west, a trail that heads south down the ridgeline, and another trail that plunges down the east face of John's Mountain.

As I emerged from my car, I was nearly overwhelmed by the awesome silence. There was no breeze, and even if there had been one, there was not yet any foliage to rustle. I heard not the buzzing of an insect, nor the cry of a bird, nor the sound of far off people. It is at times like these that I am grateful that I do not possess an I-Pod to drown out the awful silence.





There is something that draws us to falling water, and I wanted to get to Keown Falls but was unsure which trail would lead me there. The online guides that I had read were of little help. I knew the falls are to the southeast of the parking lot; one trail heads east and the other aims south. My mountaineering instinct urged me to take the descending east trail, for falls must fall, but my curiosity wanted to follow the ridgeline so I headed south. The geography of John's Mountain reminds me of Kennesaw Mountain without the bloody history. It has the same mix of trees, lichen-covered outcroppings of gray rock, and openness. Eventually, I came upon the head of a stone lion emerging from the mountain. My wife assures me that I am not just seeing things.



The lion puts me in the mind of Wordsworth's The World is Too Much with Us:

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Eventually, the trail strikes east to an arm of John's Mountain, and then ambles roughly north while descending in some mild switchbacks and offering some stunning east-facing overlooks. I came to the conclusion that the trail forms a loop. After about an hour hike, I found Keown Falls. The falls do not carry much mass (and, I read, it tends to dry up in late summer), but the descent is dramatic and the viewing platform provides a nice view.





There is signage at the falls. The Pinhoti Trail passes by and another trail leads down the mountain to another parking area. The signs warn all comers of the mortal dangers of slippery rocks and also confirmed that the trail does indeed loop back to the John's Mountain overlook. Access behind the falls, however, is not lethal. The hike back is. The return loop of the trail ascends nearly straight up the mountain and, though shorter than the other arm of the loop, is much more strenuous.



One of the benefits of hiking on a Friday in early Spring: I saw only one other person on John's Mountain (a jogger) and a family at the falls that had hiked up from the valley. Days like these refresh the soul, clear the mind, and grant the body the true rest of the weary. I need more days like these to get restore my gruntle.

I left John's Mountain and drove south down Furnace Valley, discovered a lovely old CCC camp that is now a Forest Service campground called the Pocket, and a promising trout stream called John's Creek. I shall return again with family and a fishing pole.

Peace
..._