Cook's Greenway Trail

This post has been a long time coming, but we are better late than never on describing this hike. It was an excellent day. Historic, in fact. Superbowl Sunday. We were both in Athens, Ga. & looking for a way to get in a little exercise before the game. We came up with Sandy Creek Park and decided to take on the mother of all trails there - Cook's Greenway Trail.

• Trail: Cook's Greenway Trail (map)
• Location: Athens, Ga.
  
• Length: 4.1 miles out to Sandy Creek Nature Center then 4.1 miles back
  
• Hike time: 3.5 hours (we kinda stopped keeping track)
  
• Terrain: easy, but lots of it
  
• Path visibility: Much of the trail was clearly marked, including a good section being an actual boardwalk. There were many parts though that were literally hikes through the woods & we got a little off the path at one point.
  
• Difficulty: moderately difficult but only because of the length & mud
  
• Cost: $2 each to enter the park
• Highlight destination: tie between the bubbling creek you follow most of the way & the picturesque bridges
  
• Beware: the trail gets very muddy when it has just rained & remember to bring everything you need for a 8+ mile hike (water, snacks)
  

This was such a gorgeous day to be outside. Sure, San Diego gets beautiful weather all the time but asking for high 60s in Georgia during January is really a tall order. But we had it, so off we went to explore the park.

The trail was actually concieved and developed by a local UGA professor, for whom the trail is named. Professor Walter L. Cook Jr., of the UGA Forestry and Recreation and Leisure Services, was the driving force behind the construction of the trail & the layout. He began working on the trail in the 1970s and felt it was important to not only save the area around Sandy Creek but also educate park-goers about the importance of forests & all the critters within. To this end, there were some signs along the path explaining the role of beavers & other wildlife in the area but it would have been great to have more.

I knew it was a 8+ mile hike - out to the Sandy Creek Nature Center for 4.1 miles then back to Sandy Creek Park - but I don't think I really believed my hiking partner was going to be up for the entire hike. The downside of this great day is that because I didn't really think we would do the whole thing, we pretty much left the car unprepared without any water or snacks. By the end of the hike (more than 3 hours later), we were both a little grumpy & definitely tired.

You can start the hike at the Nature Center or the Park, as we did. The path is a very simple "out & back" model with a nice mix of walking by a bubbling creek, over nice little bridges and through the woods. For much of the walk close to the Nature Center, there was a great wooden boardwalk that made path visibility excellent.

The area had recently seen a lot of rain just before our hike, so there were a lot of muddy areas where it was quite difficult to pass in order to continue on the hike.

Not surprisingly, because the weather had just turned nice in Georgia, we ran into several groups of people. We saw everything from other folks on the trail alone to groups of runners (UGA cross-country team, perhaps?). The path is really made for everyone - runners, hikers and mountain bikers & we all seemed to exist nicely together on it without getting in one another's way.

For the true enthusiast, there was an extension loop that added a tad more than a mile to the overall hike. Unfortunately, on the way back to the car we were so tired & grumpy I think that we accidentally took an extension - thereby making our hike more like 9.5 miles.

In the end, it was a wonderful time to unplug from the world, enjoy nature & really get a chance to recharge. After the hike we had no qualms about digging in to a super huge Superbowl feast.

Tipped off: No tip on this one because I had heard about Sandy Creek Park & so we went looking for a hike in it.