The nature center at Panola Mountain State Park.
Not more than half an hour from anywhere in the Atlanta area is a magnificent place that is around 400 million years old.
It is the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area, which includes nature, history, unique geology and many human cultures. It gives visitors a chance to explore and experience a lunar-like landscape with peaceful lakes and many rocky and wooded trails.
One of the highlights of this area is the Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve, which includes the granite slopes of Arabia Mountain as the most distinctive part. Though the granite ruins evoke a time of extensive granite quarrying, the preserve is now a refuge for federally endangered plant species and a destination for an abundance of outdoor enthusiasts.
One of many picnic areas.
Before 1971, not many people knew about Arabia Mountain. It was a curious expanse of granite rock visible from Klondike Road, covered in broken glass, discarded tires and rusty tin cans. However, in 1972, the Davidson family, who had quarried the mountain for decades, donated it to DeKalb County. In 1998, Becky Kelley and environmentalist Kelly Jordan spearheaded a grassroots movement to establish Arabia Mountain as a nature preserve. Then in 2006, Congress designated the 2,500-acre preserve and surrounding environs as a National Heritage Area.
Today, the area boasts more than 25 miles of trails that are open to bikers, hikers and walkers, but there are some dangers. Sometimes the trail is no more than broken rock or just a dirt path through the wooded areas, so it’s important to try and stay on the trail. Much of the trail is marked with painted arrows on rock or trees, or just stacks of rocks to guide you across the bare granite surface.
Climbing the granite mountain in the nature preserve.
Another beautiful part of the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area is Panola Mountain State Park which is similar to both Stone Mountain and Heritage Area sister Arabia Mountain, but unlike either, it has never been quarried. Today, the park has expanded to more than 1,600 acres and includes lakes, a former golf course now returned to nature and early settler homesteads. Hikers may explore the park’s watershed and granite outcrop on their own, or they may make reservations to join park rangers for guided hikes onto the restricted-access mountain.
A family enjoying the view from the top of the mountain.
The actual Panola Mountain is a designated National Natural Landmark, and pets are not allowed on trails in the conservation area. However, the paved Rockdale River/Arabia Mountain PATH Trail is open to leashed dogs and bicycles. This rolling journey takes visitors past two fishing lakes, grassy fields, shaded woods, rock outcrops, over the South River and beyond. Deer, turkey and other wildlife are abundant. The nearby city of Lithonia, which means “stone place,” has deep roots in the surrounding granite formations.
Each changing season offers visitors a multitude of new reasons to continue to explore the lunar-like landscape and deep history of this protected region of Georgia. For more info, check their website: www.nps.gov/places/arabia-mountain-national-heritage-area.htm.
Photos: by Bill Vanderford
