A lot of the news in Fayette County focuses on property being newly developed, such as Pinewood Studios, but there’s also worthy news about special spaces being deliberately undeveloped.
Such is the case of two new tracts being managed by the Southern Conservation Trust, the nonprofit organization that oversees five community preserves in Fayette and is about to open a sixth. Overall, the trust has more than 1,600 acres in the Southern Crescent, although some is still private land protected by conservation easements.
Each location varies in size and topography, but they all offer nice places to get away without having to go far away. Whether you want to take a walk, take some photos or get the kids away from a video screen, you’ve got options.
Many people are already familiar with the Line Creek Nature Area, whose 70 acres sit on the Fayette-Coweta line. Pam Young, the SCT’s executive director, says Line Creek gets more than 30,000 visitors a year. The nature areas at Flat Creek in Peachtree City and Sams Lake in the unincorporated county have woods and waterways that are home to a variety of wildlife.
Two places you might not have heard of yet are the Nesmith Preserve and the Morgan Grove Nature Area.
You can still smell the freshness of the mulch crunching under your feet as you enter the Nesmith Preserve, whose trailhead is at the far end of the Starr’s Mill High School parking lot. This 120-acre preserve was designed as an environmental study area, and students have already begun using it as an outdoor lab. It will eventually have a live webcam, including night-vision video.
A short trail leads to a 300-foot boardwalk along Whitewater Creek. It opens onto a green sea of aquatic plants that are home to critters who dive into the shallows at the sound of footsteps. When I visited, woodpeckers hammered away nearby, frogs called to each other in their own game of Marco Polo, and a heron – one of three nesting pairs on the property – glided silently overhead.
Just southeast of Fayetteville, between Murphy Creek and Gay Creek, the Morgan Grove Nature Area includes a native grass and wildflower meadow ringed by a walking trail. Its 60 acres opened to the public in 2012, but it is still being improved and replanted with longleaf, shortleaf and loblolly pines after being retired from logging.
The SCT is now working with the city of Fayetteville on a four-phase project known as The Ridge Nature Area, 308 acres between Gingercake Creek and Whitewater Creek that will include four miles of hiking trails, a nature center, outdoor classrooms, a community garden and bike trails.
It’s not open to the public yet, but once it is, if you happen to see a box turtle amble by wearing an antenna, rest assured you’re not hallucinating. Students from Clayton State University have tagged and are monitoring more than 740 box turtles as part of a research project.
Young says the SCT’s goal is “to connect people with nature.” These sites make that the perfect excuse to unplug.
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