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The last key piece of a puzzle that would link two great trails, one in Alabama and the other in Georgia, is close to being secured. Cleburne County engineer Russell Emrick says that with help from Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks, the county has secured a $100,000 grant to complete the last unfinished bridge on the Chief Ladiga Trail.The grant’s final paperwork has not been completed yet, but Emrick expects it to be approved soon. He believes that if the money is OK’d quickly, work on the bridge can be completed by summer.
This would open up Cleburne’s nine miles of the trail to hikers, horseback riders and those with mountain bikes. Regular bikes would have a difficult time, as the path is still very rough.
After the bridge’s completion, Emrick hopes to begin paving the trail. The Cleburne County Commission has not yet committed $100,000 that, in turn, would free up matching federal dollars.
Cleburne Probate Judge Ryan Robertson says, "We certainly have the means to do that now and there is certainly a willingness on my part and the part of the commission to make it happen."
To track that progress, The Star’s Bob Davis and John Fleming hit the trail last weekend. Below are their editorial notebooks recounting the experiences.
A peach of a trail
Out toward the edge of metro Atlanta is a town called Smyrna. If you poke around this suburb long enough you’re likely to find a two-yard wide concrete path that stretches — with the slightest of interruptions — slam to the Alabama line.Here begins the Silver Comet Trail, a biking, hiking, horseback-riding paradise that on any given sunny weekend day is swimming with all manner of humanity having fun.
Last Sunday was so sun-drenched that I wanted to be part of the fun on the Silver Comet. So I loaded up my crew from our home in Atlanta and headed out to the trail. We had the abstract aim of hooking up with Bob Davis and his family. They would take the Ladiga on the Alabama side and head toward Georgia. The rendezvous, in theory, would be somewhere in Cleburne County around where the Chief Ladiga and the Silver Comet hook up.
Of course, we knew this would not come to pass. We knew, like everyone else who pays attention to the efforts to complete the trail from Anniston to Atlanta, that the nine-mile stretch through Cleburne County is the missing link.
Still, we figured we would head to the Alabama line and see what the Silver Comet had to offer.
Since my 6-year-old and 11-year-old weren’t up to tackling the entire 58 miles between Smyrna and the Alabama line, my wife and I decided to go to Cedartown, a mere eight miles east of the Cleburne County line.
There we saddled up at a spacious parking lot by the trail and started heading west along the flat stretch of concrete.
We saw bucolic farmland. We saw cows and roosters. We saw turtles in the swamps and squirrels in the trees. We saw couples pushing baby strollers, heavy-set people walking, thin people running. We saw boys playing in a creek bottom, people walking their dogs, a family riding horses. And we saw bikers, fast ones, slow ones, easy going ones, serious ones. We saw dozens of people enjoying themselves along a stretch of rural Georgia in the glorious sunshine.
I keep thinking to myself that if we can just open the Cleburne section, all of these people can start having fun together and everyone will start benefiting, and that includes financially. All along the Silver Comet Trail, towns have started reaping profits from the trail. Tiny Rockmart in west Georgia has seen its downtown transformed by the trail. Cedartown is lined up to do the same thing.
Plans to complete the trail are moving forward in Cleburne County. Let’s hope those plans stay on track, because this isn’t just about enjoying a Sunday bike ride. It’s about economic development.
— John Fleming
Hopefully heading east
Our task Sunday may have been a fool’s errand, but it was hardly foolish. Cycling on the Ladiga Trail until it turns into Georgia’s Silver Comet Trail isn’t yet feasible, but its possibilities are inspiring.Save for a few dollars and some determination from a few elected officials, a willing rider could bike from downtown Anniston all the way into metro Atlanta.
My family, which includes a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old, weren’t ready to make the whole trek on Sunday, so we started at Piedmont, heading east toward the state line.
A few miles past Piedmont and its wonderful Eubanks Welcome Center, the trail loses its smoothness. In Cleburne County, the path turns to dirt and rocks as it crosses Terrapin Creek. It remains passable for a time, but a missing bridge turns the trail from an outdoorsy adventure into something a little more risky.
Alas, we never did see the Fleming family, but we did exchange pleasantries with a host of others on that sunny March day. As usual, the parking lots at various trailheads were filled with vehicles from all over Alabama and Georgia.
Pave that rocky nine-mile portion, complete that bridge and we’d have a smooth trail stretching to the Georgia line. Extend the trail southward from the Ladiga’s trailhead, the Mike Tucker Park, to the train depot, and we’d be talking biking nirvana.
First, an ambitious rider takes the train from Atlanta to Anniston. An Amtrak ticket costs about $23.
Off the train by mid-morning, our rider picks up a few supplies for the trip. Might even take a look-see at what’s for sale on Noble Street. Then again, our rider might come the night before, contributing to the local economy with lodging and dining bills.
Once on the Ladiga, the cyclist is safe from that great menace to riders everywhere: the careless motorist.
The rider heads up the trail, enjoying the scenery of rolling hills and deep forests that are occasionally broken by towns and even the campus of Jacksonville State.
Past Piedmont, the trail starts to rise sharply. In less than 10 miles, our rider would be in Georgia and less than 60 miles from home.
In total, it would be quite a ride, approximately 90 miles. About what Lance Armstrong does every day for three weeks during the Tour de France.
The great part about the Ladiga is there are plenty of places to start and nobody has to do the whole thing every time they ride. But a grand meeting somewhere in the middle between an Alabama family biking east and another family coming west is a nice option, one that would bring innumerable benefits to East Alabama.
— Bob Davis
Discuss the Ladiga Trail
• Thursday, 6 p.m. at the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce in Anniston.• The public is invited to discuss the trail with elected officials, experts and board members.
