Stone Mountain PATH Trail

I ventured a little further from my comfort zone again today. First, my hopes of being able to calmly and fully explore the entirety of the Eastside Beltline trail were interrupted by some sort of high-pressure spraying being done to the trail, thus blocking the trail. Another cyclist told me I'd have to go around it by taking side streets. This particular side street dead-ended into Ponce de Leon which is a street I'm not even comfortable driving on (much less cycling on). The trail was running across an over-pass and well out of my reach. I road into the Kroger parking lot and headed in what felt like the right direction and sure enough I found a well-beaten dirt path around a fence that dumped me back on the trail on the other side of the construction blockade. That was exciting.

Arriving at Freedom Parkway I took the turn for the PATH Foundation's Stone Mountain trail. It's very nice. It doesn't have the shine to it of the newly minted Eastside trail, but it's not bad. I followed it to the far side of Candler park where the trail dead-ends into Ponce (or so I thought) and since it had been forty-seven minutes and I didn't bother to bring any food, I spun around and headed back home.

After reviewing the maps, it seems that I have to take some side streets to hook back up with the trail, and then I'm good until I arrive in downtown Dekalb, and then it's street riding for a few miles until I reach the final section which'll take me all the way to Stone Mountain. I'll probably need to bring a couple granola bars for that.