150th Chickamauga event...getting there!

[Pritchett Ball]

I would appreciate advice from anyone actually familiar with the location of the Mountain Cove Farms area, and how is the BEST way to get there from the different directions (North, South, East, and West) folk will come from.

My concern is that the internet MAPS (Bing, Google...) sites show roads that look like they cut across the mountains to the event location, but if folk are traveling at night, I fear that you can get lost traveling on what looks like a short cut!

Anyone who knows the area, road layout, and generally the best way to get there, your advice would be greatly appreciated!

Kevin Dally

[Mark Choate]

Re: 150th Chickamauga event...getting there!

Kevin,

Last weekend I traveled to the site for a number of reasons and one was to determine the best way to approach the site when pulling a horse trailer. Checking with tools like Google maps or mapquest can be deceptive as the lay of the land is challenging. The site lays between to mountain ranges, the Lookout mountain range to the west and Pigeon mount to the east. The routes coming in from the west and cutting through places like Trenton Al and routing over the mountain will send you through a number of tight switchback turns and is not a safe route for pulling a trailer. The easiest route for this is to go to Chattanooga and go south on hiway 17 which becomes hiway 193 near the city limits. This runs due south and about 30 minutes south of Chattanooga, 193 bends to the east and at that bend you take West Cove Rd which continues south and enters into the north end of the battlefield south. The entire route is flat and relatively straight. This is the route I am advising for all mounted participants or any pulling a trailer. I am not sure about the best route from the South.

Hope this helps,

Mark

[Pritchett Ball]

Re: 150th Chickamauga event...getting there!

Mark:

THAT is the kind of advice I (and maybe others) need to look at...anyone else care to add to this?

Kevin Dally

[Spinster]

Re: 150th Chickamauga event...getting there!

Mark is exactly right.

Whatever you do, Do not attempt to drop off of Lookout on Doughterty Gap Road IF you are towing. I don't care how good you are, I don't care how experienced you are, do not do this to your animals. I can see my own taillights AND the bun on the back of my head on that road. And I'm from the next Mountain over. GPS only half works in this part of the world anyway.

It looks like a short cut on the map. It is a pretty drive. Just make sure you have good tread on you tires, know how to find first gear, have brake pads and are not towing. That's the case for me, and I'll go that way......unless its raining, and then I'll take the long way around.

Lawsy, this is a pretty site.......

[Mark Choate]

Re: 150th Chickamauga event...getting there!

Since my earlier post on this, the subject has taken on another feel for me as a friend and fellow trooper just recently lost his brakes while navigating a much smaller set of hills and in the process his horse trailer came off in the curve and rolled. Amazingly, the horses were not killed, but only injured.

To add to my first post of directions for anyone coming from the west or north, I have been informed by another trooper coming from the south, that these directions would work:

a) From I-75 in Georgia, take exit 320 (Resaca/Lafayette) onto GA Hwy 136
b) Go west on 136 to Lafayette where you will take hiway 193 to the west.
c) Continue on 193 west until it takes the bend to the north at which time the same West Cove road that I describe in my earlier post is to be taken to the left (or south) and will run right into the event.

I should note that I have not personally taken this route but it is told to me by someone who has and pulls a large trailer. I suggest that you search this out for comfort and verification on your own.

be safe,
Mark