Summer workout? Try Tray, Georgia's second highest
Article submitted by George Owen

This trek is for folks who desire a workout - not recommended for beginners. However, it's shady all the way (no sunscreen needed), and affords some open views with possible high altitude breezes accompanying your travels. Suggest you start early, when its cool, and you can also miss the later-afternoon thunderstorms.

Begin this 10.4-mile roundtrip at Unicoi Gap located on GAHwy. 75 at 8.0 miles north of Robertstown or 14.0 miles south of Hiawassee, GA. Most of your trip will be on the famous 6" X 2" white-blazed Appalachian Trail (AT). Unicoi Gap provides plenty of free parking.

Your very first 1.3 miles of the day will be the sharpest climb with the most elevation gain. You begin at 2,949 feet elevation in Unicoi Gap, and climb steeply and continuously to the Summit of Rocky Mountain, bypassing for now the Rocky Mountain blue-blazed trail which comes off on your left at 0.9 mile.

A thousand-feet-plus gain will bring you on the AT to Rocky Mountain's summit at 4,017 feet. Here several rocky bluffs afford magnificent views. The mountain protruding alone in the far distance with a ninetydegree sharp drop hundred of feet on its right side is Yonah Mountain near Cleveland, GA. It is most notable for its use by the U.S. Army's Camp Merrill in providing repelling exercises for its Army ranger program.

Move now steeply down the back side of Rocky. At one point you will be passing a very large fern grove under open forest on your left. During June flame azaleas abound.

You reach Forest Service Rd. 283 at Indian Grave Gap, el. 3,113, and you've covered 2.7 miles, just over halfway to Tray Mountain. From here you climb again most of the time, but more gradually. (Note: Some folks I've known exercise and train for harder hikes by simply going over Rocky Mountain between the two gaps and back again.)

The first minutes out of Indian Grave Gap one finds the forest floor is full of galax, small ground-hugging plants with stalked white blooms in spring and leaves turning a burnished color in cooler months. You climb ever onward, crossing Tray Mountain gravel road (USFS 79) at 3.4 miles. At 3.6 miles there is a flat area just before the next climb. To the left downhill from the spring sign was the old cheese factory, an isolated highelevation dairy farm operated mid-nineteenth century.

After a further climb from the spring sign, reach a rock opening with good eastward views at 4.2. At 4.4 miles enter Tray Gap at 3,847 ft., with two intersecting gravel roads, USFS 79 and 698. Cross the road and resume your AT journey upward, passing a sign declaring Tray Mountain Wilderness.

Climb just a few long, sweeping switchbacks. A bit below Tray's summit, on the left at a right switchback, a view up the west side of the Blue Ridge Range awaits you. The vista also provides a panorama of peaks in Georgia and North Carolina.

Finally you reach the rocky summit of Tray Mountain at 5.2 miles, elevation 4,430, the second highest peak on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia (state's seventh highest overall according to one source). Standing on the rocks, one may receive fair views in most directions, although the summit shrubs are higher now than formerly. There's Brasstown Bald to the west (Georgia's highest), and Lake Burton and other peaks are to the east and northeast.

Here's a good early lunch spot. I journeyed here in late June in the fine company of some of the longer-hikes group from the Mountain High Hikers. This is a club of about 160 members from several counties in northern Georgia and southwestern North Carolina. Our lunch was made quickly by the passing over of a light shower. (Web search for "Mountain High Hikers" for info.)

It's time to return to your vehicle at Unicoi Gap, but with a variation. After trekking virtually all downhill (Whew!) 2.5 miles to Indian Grave Gap, turn right on the road. Here you will see blue 2" X 6" blazes that proceed northward along the road. Follow these blazes 0.8 miles, and watch carefully for double blue blazes (one above another) indicating a turn off the road.

Here turn left and follow the continuous blazes on the Rocky Mountain Trail. This trail through beautiful woods first uses an old road bed, then it leaves this on narrow constructed trail for most of its route. This includes crossing a small, tumbling stream then climbing steadily up the mountain. However, you avoid the harder AT climb back over Rocky's summit and also see new territory.

Reaching the Appalachian Trail, turn right and walk all downhill for 0.9 mile; soon you are back to Unicoi Gap and transportation home.