Wanting to take advantage of a rare warm and sunny January day, a friend and I decided to head north about an hour to hike the Pine Mountain trail west loop. I can imagine this hike is pretty busy on warm weekends because it’s so close to Atlanta, Kennesaw and Cartersville. It’s about a five-minute drive to downtown Cartersville, which has a cute town center with many restaurants to choose from for a post-hike meal.
This hike has the same name as the trail in FDR state park, so that may be confusing. It’s located northwest of Atlanta with summit views of Lake Allatoona and the Atlanta skyline on a clear day. We parked at the west trailhead, which has tons of parking spots. Only a couple cars were there on Monday morning.
Starting out the trail was a wide path and muddy because of some early January rainy and cloudy days. The trail then headed down, crossing a small bridge over the creek before to the summit. We took the left route and went out to the David Archer overlook to take in the view. If you want a longer hike, you can continue right on the east loop adding 2.5 miles. We ended up heading back on the west loop and passed several groups of people heading up. The trail had quite a few switchbacks on the way down.
Once back at the trailhead, we were ready to get some lunch and headed into Cartersville to eat at Swheat Market (it’s only about 5 minutes from the trail). I’d definitely recommend eating there. The meals are filling and the sweet potato fries are delicious!
This is a beautiful hike to do if you’re looking for more places to explore in the Atlanta area. Let me know if you decide to hike there!
