Vogel State Park

Infobox park
park=Vogel State Park

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image size=
caption=A map showing the location of Georgia State Parks. Vogel is one of the northernmost parks in the state.
type=State Park
location=near Blairsville, Georgia
coordinates=
size= 233 acres
opened=1931
operator=
visitors=
status=

Vogel State Park is a 233 acre state park located at the base of Blood Mountain in the Chattahoochee National Forest. It became one of the first two parks in Georgia when it founded a state park system in 1931. [cite web|title=Vogel State Park|work=NorthGeorgia.com|publisher=Golden Ink|url=http://ngeorgia.com/ang/Vogel_State_Park|accessdate = 2008-02-28 ] [cite web|title=Vogel State Park's 75th Anniversary
work = unionsentinel.com|author=Ethelene Dyer Jones|publisher=Union Sentinal|url=http://www.unionsentinel.com/news/2006/0727/front_page/006.html|accessdate = 2008-07-07 ] Much of the park was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s.

The park features streams, a waterfall, and Lake Trahlyta. [Pfitzer (2006), p. 132] At convert|2500|ft|m elevation it is one of Georgia's highest altitude state parks. The mountainous habitats surrounding the lake support a wide assortment of plants and animals.

Within the park are a series of hiking trails. These include the Bear Hair Trail and the more strenuous Coosa Backcountry Trail, which leads up toward Blood Mountain and the Appalachian Trail near Neal's Gap. Vogel Park features camping sites, cabins, swimming, boating and other recreational activities.

Description and history

Vogel State Park is located convert|11|mi|km south of Blairsville on US Highway 19 in the north Georgia mountains. At nearly convert|2500|ft|m altitude, Vogel State Park is usually cool usually during the summer months, and is one of Georgia's most popular state parks [Brown (1996), p. 94] . Vogel features hiking trails, cabins and a 20 acre pond known as Lake Trahlyta, which was created when the Civilian Conservation Corps dammed Wolf Creek. The lake is named for a Cherokee maiden who is buried a few miles from the park at Stonepile Gap. [cite web|title=Vogel State Park|work = NorthGeorgia.com|publisher=Golden Ink|url=http://ngeorgia.com/ang/Vogel_State_Park|accessdate = 2008-02-28 ] The Corps workers, located at the CCC Camp at Goose Creek just north of the park, also built the first cabins, picnic areas and camping grounds at Vogel. [cite web|title=Vogel State Park's 75th Anniversary
work = unionsentinel.com|author=Ethelene Dyer Jones|publisher=Union Sentinal|url=http://www.unionsentinel.com/news/2006/0727/front_page/006.html|accessdate = 2008-07-07 ]

Vogel is Georgia's second oldest state park. The land comprising the park was donated to the state in 1927 by Augustus Vogel and Fred Vogel, Jr. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The two were heirs to the the Phister Vogel Leather Company, a Wisconsin tannery founded by Frederick Vogel. The Vogel family harvested bark from oak and hemlock trees located on thousands of acres they owned in North Georgia. The bark was shipped to Wisconsin and used by the company for tanning leather. During World War I, a synthetic method to tan leather was developed so there was no further need for the north Georgia resources. The Vogels gave their land to Georgia to create the state park. [cite web|title=Vogel State Park Lake|work =GPB.comcom|publisher=Georgia Public Broadcasting|url=http://www.gpb.org/sitestobehold/vogel|accessdate = 2008-07-06 ] [cite web|title=Vogel, Frederick 1823 - 1892|work =Dictionary of Wisconsin History|publisher=Wisconsin Historical Society|url=http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary/index.asp?action=view&term_id=2587&term_type_id=1&term_type_text=People&letter=V|accessdate = 2008-09-13 ]

Vogel State Park Lake Dam, also known as Lake Trahlyta Dam, is a convert|52|ft|m|sing=on high earthen embankment. The convert|600|ft|m|sing=on long dam has a maximum discharge of convert|2447|cuft|m3 per second. Its capacity is convert|522|acre feet, although its normal storage is convert|210|acre feet. It drains an area of 1,638 square miles. [cite web|title=Vogel State Park Lake|work = Findlakes.com|url=http://findlakes.com/vogel_state_park_lake_georgia~ga00663.htm|accessdate = 2008-07-06 ]

Facilities and activities

Vogel State Park hosts a variety of outdoor activities, including camping, hiking, backpacking, boating, fishing and swimming. The park includes 103 tent, trailer and RV sites for camping, 18 walk-in campsites, and 35 cottages. About 95 of the camping sites contain electrical hookups and water. [Brown (1996), p. 103] Also on site are four picnic shelters and a group camping facility, a pioneer campground, backwoods primitive campground areas and hot showers. [cite web|title=Vogel State Park|work=Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites|publisher=Georgia Dept. of Natural Resources|url=http://www.gastateparks.org/info/vogel/|accessdate = 2008-02-28 ] [Brown (1996), p. 94]

The centerpiece of the park is Lake Trahlyta. The lake has a swimming beach and boat launch for non-motorized watercraft, and offers seasonal rentals for pedal boats. It contains bass and bream and is stocked periodically during each trout season with about 5,000 trout. [cite web|title=Lake Trahlyta in Union County | work=BlueRidgeHighlander.com |url=http://www.theblueridgehighlander.com/lakes_in_the_mountains/north_georgia/lake_trahlyta.html |accessdate = 2008-02-28 ] Also at the park are a general store, miniature golf course and a Civilian Conservation Corps museum.

Hiking

The park features four hiking trails, covering a wide variety of conditions, forest habitats and difficulties. [Pfitzer (1993), p. 155] These include the moderate difficulty convert|4|mi|km|sing=on-long Bear Hair Trail marked by orange blazes. It begins and ends in Vogel, although most of the trail loops through the Chatahoochee National Park.Brown (1996), p. 95] The park also features a convert|1|mi|km|sing=on Trahlyta Lake Loop Trail and a half-mile long Nature Trail.

Also in the park is the Coosa Backcountry Trail, a strenuous convert|12.5|mi|km|sing=on route leading up Duncan Ridge to Coosa Bald at over convert|4000|ft|m elevation. The trail is marked with yellow blazes and is generally easy to follow. It fords streams on its lower segments before traversing Duncan's Ridge, including Cossa Bald, at over 4,000 feet elevation. Access to the Appalachian Trail is from nearby Neel's Gap, just a little higher up Blood Mountain; hikers can reach this area from the Byron Herbert Reece Trail. Also nearby is the Duncan Ridge Trail.

Annual events

Annual events held at the park include a springtime Wildflower Walk, CCC Reunion, Kids Fishing Rodeo, Independence Day flag-raising ceremony and bicycle parade, Mountain Music and Arts & Craft Festival held in late summer, Fall Hoedown, and Christmas Tree Lighting. [cite web|title=Vogel State Park|work=Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites|publisher=Georgia Dept. of Natural Resources|url=http://www.gastateparks.org/info/vogel/|accessdate = 2008-09-13 ]

Wildlife, flora and geology

Like the rest of the southern Blue Ridge Mountains, Vogel State Park and the surrounding area consists of many valleys, ridges and mountains formed by repeated plate tectonic movement and collisions, starting with the Grenville Orogeny nearly 1.5 billion years ago. [Alden (1999), pp. 16-17] The resulting landscape created diverse topology containing many different species of plants and animal.

The Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains contains low-to-high-grade metamorphic rocks. Many of the rocks of the Blue Ridge appear to be the metamorphosed equivalents of Proterozoic and Paleozoic sedimentary rocks. Others are metamorphosed igneous rocks, including Corbin metagranite, Fort Mountain gneiss, varieties of mafic and ultramafic rocks, and the metavolcanic rocks of the Gold Belt. [cite web|title=The Blue Ridge
work =The Geology of Georgia|publisher=University of Georgia - Department of Geology|url=http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/GAGeology.html#BR|accessdate = 2008-09-13 ]

Much of the area is similar to Pennsylvania in climate, vegetation and wildlife. [Brown (1996), pp. xv-xx] The park is near the southern limit for Eastern hemlock and Eastern white pine. Coves in the area vary by elevation and topography, with second-growth oak and hickory more common in lower-lying areas. The surrounding forests contain rich, high-altitude flora including rare wildflowers and ferns, such as Persistent Trillium, which grows near "Rhododendron". [Brown (1996), pp. 84-106] Nearby boulderfields by Blood Mountain include Dutchman's breeches, squirrel corn, waterleaf and other herbaceous plants.

The area is populated with White-tailed deer, grouse and raccoon. The deer population, which was extirpated by 1895, has rebounded since re-introduction by park ranger Arthur Woody during the 1930s. [Brown (1996), p. 98] Over 100 species of birds inhabit or migrate through the area, including native songbirds such as the Canada Warbler, Blackburnian, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green and Chestnut-sided Warblers. Also found are hawks, owls, woodpeckers, kinglets, thrushes, vireos, cuckoos, phoebes, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, Brown Creepers, wrens, tanagers, grosbeaks, Indigo Buntings and Red Crossbills. [See Brown (1996), pp. 84-106 for additional details] Migratory species are present during the late spring and early fall, making the area popular among birdwatchers The creeks surrounding the lake are rich with different species of salamanders. [See Brown (1996) for details on amphibians living around the Blood Mountain, Lake Winfield Scott and Vogel State Park]

Notes

References

*cite book|last=Alden|first=Peter|title=National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Southeastern States|publisher=Chanticleer Press|date=1999|location=New York|id=ISBN 0-679-44683-4
*cite book|last=Brown|first=Fred|coauthors=Nell Jones|title=The Georgia Conservancy's Guide to The North Georgia Mountains (3rd ed.)|publisher=Longstreet Press|date=1996|location=Atlanta, GA|id=ISBN 1-56352-314-0
*cite book|last=Nutt|first=Alex|title=Camping Georgia|publisher=Falcon Press|date=2002|location=Helena, MT|id=ISBN 0-7627-1077-2
*cite book|last=Pfitzer|first=Donald|title=Hiking Georgia|publisher=Morris Book Publishing/Falcon|date=2006|location=Helena, MT|id=ISBN 0-7627-3642-9|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=wi-aHmpX9xkC&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=Vogel+State+Park&source=web&ots=AQR93MvC4z&sig=JrNb17duk4FGdxanvu0lPuNCMZ8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result

Further reading

*cite book|last=Homan|first=Tim|title=The Hiking Trails of North Georgia|publisher = Peachtree Publishing|date=2001|location=Atlanta|id=ISBN 978-1-56145-127-2

External links

* [http://gastateparks.org/info/vogel/ Vogel State Park Official Website]
* [http://www.storiesandevents.com/vogel.html Vogel State Park 75th Anniversary]