Return to Whitehall Forest

If you’ve read Summer Camp Memories at Whitehall Forest, then you’ll know that summer camp from 1983 was one of my favorite memories from GS.  It was a crazy day camp with all sorts of drama and suspense!  Jenny reminded me that a car bringing a girl to the camp ran into a deer. I don’t think they were injured, but that news was all the talk among the campers.  This followup post may be of no interest except to me and Jenny, but I wanted to share it anyway.  It’s my blog and I’ll post if I want to, post if I want to, post if I want to…. 

As I stated in the original entry, I wanted to go back there to see what everything looked like now versus what I remembered, especially the big hill.  Well, a few weeks ago, I did just that on a Friday afternoon.  I was in town for Georgia’s homecoming and to perform in the alumni band, and on the way back from visiting with a friend, I had time to spare.  Whitehall Forest is on the way to my dad’s house, so I always pass by the entrance when I’m in town.  Many times the gates are closed, but they were open that day.

It’s a few miles from the entrance to the end of the road where our camp was held.  I parked right next to the Flinchum’s Phoenix building as referenced in my first post.  I don’t know the significance of the Flinchum’s Phoenix building or why it’s named that.  The whole area is part of the University of Georgia’s 840 acre research forest.  As such, there were caterers setting up for homecoming festivities while I was there:

Right in front of Flinchum’s Phoenix is the hill and at the top was where we stayed.  It looked EXACTLY as I remembered.  Normally when you see something as an adult that you experienced as a child, things look smaller than you remembered.  But not in this case.  I started laughing in fact because of how similar it looked.  I hope the caterers ignored this crazy woman just randomly laughing at a hill.

You can just make out some kind of house behind the small shed in this picture.  The “ghost motorcycle” was parked next to the house:

And here’s a better view of the “grassy mountain.”  At the top you’ll make out a picnic shelter.  We held many of our activities there.  I don’t remember where exactly our tent was, but I believe it was on the left side of the picture in the trees.  If you keep going up, you’ll run into the field surrounded by woods where the “ghost that turned out to be a trash bag” made its appearance.

That’s about what I thought the hill looked like!  If you’ve got a badly sprained ankle, it wouldn’t be easy to make it up to the top as an adult OR a child.

I had a big smile on my face as I drove away.  I should have walked up to the picnic shelter, but I was already near the entrance when the thought occurred to me.  I may do it another time. Ah, memories: