A Spring Workday on Trails Along the South Fork of Peachtree Creek

By Sally Sears
March 25, 2023

Neighborhood volunteer and members of Emory's Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity

My hand was inches away from yanking invasive English ivy when I spotted a wandering Emory student. He sauntered along Peavine Trail, staring away from the creek and into the woods. He acknowledged neither my wave or hello at first. But two of his classmates, fraternity men, guessed he most likely was listening to something through his ear buds, Sure enough, he was.

The men from Sigma Phi Epsilon were on a mission, helping to clear the trail of messy invasive plants. Unlike me, they knew that walking students often listen to something through ear buds. Yet it turns out that the newcomer was a student on a mission, too. Nick was hunting mushrooms. Morels, he hoped. He’d already found some oyster mushrooms.

We all livened up at that idea. But then Nick shrugged in apology. “I’m from New Jersey,” he admitted. “I don’t know when things get ripe in Atlanta.”

Maybe we could tell him when he might find some chanterelles? Charmed that he didn’t claim to know everything already, I was happy to suggest that August might be a better time for mushroom foraging, and the woods along the tributaries upstream of Emory were good places to start. Olmsted’s parks on Ponce, particularly Deepdene? He’d never heard of these upstream parks and thanked us as he wandered away.

These trail workdays, including spending time with volunteer  Emory undergraduates, feature among the pleasures of living near the South Fork of Peachtree Creek. The two men who guessed at Nick’s ear buds were deep into junior year papers and projects. 

As they worked, Ace and Will swapped tales of a physics assignment on electrical conductivity in the lab and a paper due on Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel Dispossessed. I listened as Old Briarcliff Road neighbor Terry Krugman found homes along the rocks at the mouth of the Peavine Rain Garden for sharp spears of wild iris. As the new plants take hold, yellow blooms will feed butterflies. The roots and stems will filter pollutants from the tributary coming downhill from Briarcliff Road and Channel 5. More Emory students worked upstream from the rain garden, along the new loop at the Emory Road trailhead.

They tugged out privet, cleared winter-downed branches, and then discovered the buried pieces of a discarded bathroom, half-hidden in the leaves. Someone careless or just lazy long ago tossed the trash down a hill beside Emory Road at Harvard Road. The students shoved half a dozen wheelbarrow loads of bathtub shards and tile chunks up to Emory Road, where Emory’s Exterior Services Director Jimmy Powell saw to their eventual removal.

Volunteers check out the debris that they removed during the cleanup

The morning’s last best moment was discovered sleeping under a chunk of tile on the forest floor. A beautiful salamander, six inches long, and purple as an eggplant stirred in the leaf litter. We knelt quietly as fraternity member Russell rebuilt its hiding place with leaves and twigs.

Look closely to find the salamander

South Fork Conservancy Connects You to Nature

Whether you’re an Atlanta resident or a visitor to the area, you can take advantage of an expanding trail system in the heart of our city. South Fork Conservancy (SFC) is installing and refurbishing a series of trails along the South and North Forks of Peachtree Creek that eventually will allow you to walk from the Atlanta BeltLine spur at Atlanta’s Lindbergh Drive all the way to Emory University under your own steam.

Start your adventure right now! Visit a new trail segment that begins on Lindbergh Drive at the I-85 overpass. This road borders several neighborhoods along its length and links the Lindbergh Marta Station to points east. Here, you can access the trailhead of SFC's Creek Walk Connector (CWC), a paved, 12-foot-wide path that opens onto a glorious meadow.

Across the way, you'll spy trail-building activity on the Meadow Loop, a soft-surface trail that, when completed, will wind its way along the creek banks and join the CWC just as it straightens to go under the highway. You can zip along the CWC trail on your bike, skateboard, or wheelchair. Push a stroller, go for a run, or saunter along until you reach a new pocket park that serves as a nexus for several other partner trails. From here you can go north at Adina Drive towards Path400, or in the not-too-distant future, go west to a spur of the Atlanta BeltLine.

Photo by Rob Knight Buckhead.com

Don’t miss the recently opened and spectacular Confluence Bridge, built by SFC, which spans the creek near the junction of the North and South Forks of Peachtree Creek!

The spectacular Corten steel structure is reminiscent of railroad bridges of the past, and, from above the trees, you'll gain a different perspective as the natural world opens up to you and the city spreads out in the near distance. The bridge sports a 175-foot long three-tiered ramp system leading to an overlook that is currently under construction. This spring, it will allow visitors a way to walk down and experience the creek up close.

The ramp system is also your entry point to the Confluence Trail. This soft-surface trail is three quarters of a mile long and currently boasts one rain garden that slows down and filters stormwater that runs off streets and rooftops. Construction on a second rain garden farther along the trail will begin soon.

Volunteers help plant native plants near the rain garden at Armand Park to improve stormwater quality and attract butterflies.” Photo by Marcia Brandes

At the end of the Confluence Trail, lies a sweet gem, Armand Park, which includes an additional rain garden, pergola, and a playground which marks the current culmination of the trail.  This city park is heavily used by people living in the adjoining Lindridge/Martin-Manor neighborhood, and resulted from a collaboration among the community, the City of Atlanta, and SFC.

On a recent visit to one trail, we spotted a family of wood ducks gliding along the creek and a magnificent great blue heron, wings outstretched, riding the wind’s currents. Friends witnessed a pair of mating red-tailed hawks. People were out using the trail to walk their dogs and ride their bikes. Life going on in abundance.

A Cedar Waxwing enjoys the healthy habitats along the South Fork Conservancy trail system. Photo by Steve Rushing

In our busy lives, it’s easy to underestimate how much we need to encounter and care for the natural world, of which, we are a part.  As we step confidently toward the future, we are mindful that we also need to stop and take notice: absorbing birdsong, a pop of color signifying a waxwing in search of a mid-morning snack, or a turtle sunning itself on a half-submerged log. All there if we can but see it.

Nature’s gifts are all there for us, all if we just take the time to experience them.

Calling all Quilters

The South Fork Conservancy (SFC) would like to make you aware of an opportunity to exhibit your quilts at its 2022 outdoor show and auction called “Natural Connections.” SFC holds the show and auction in conjunction with its annual Creek Rising fundraiser and celebration. It takes place at Zonolite Park in Atlanta on the banks of the South Fork of Peachtree Creek in the fall of 2022.

In 2021, a group of generous quilters from the Atlanta area who learned about the show through their quilt guilds, donated 18 quilts that they made for the show. Although the pandemic short-circuited SFC’s plans for an in-person Creek Rising, the show and auction went on—online—to an audience eager to view and then enthusiastically bid on them. Consequently, every quilt sold!

This year, SFC plans to hold both an online and “live” show and auction and anticipates that even more quilters from a wider geographic area will decide to join the party. As the last show demonstrated, quilters know how to connect. They have an idea for a quilt; they think about what they want it to look like, connecting their ideas and musings to fabrics and embellishments they might use. Ultimately, they connect fabric pieces to make one whole and beautiful creation. Similarly, SFC has a vision of connecting neighborhoods along the creek, restoring its banks, removing invasive plants, and planting native species that beckon pollinators. Creating new trails makes possible a way for people to enjoy, respect, and care for the natural world.

Click here to find a “Call for Quilts” that we ask you to share via email with your friends. It contains information about the theme, quilt sizes, pricing, intent to submit, and submission deadlines (Note that the entry form is due by March 1, 2022). Briefly, here is how it will work:

•    Quilters donate a quilt that they have made. The donation is tax deductible.

•    Each quilt will be professionally photographed. Photos will be placed on the SFC website and in all materials related to Creek Rising.

•    Quilters will receive photos  (jpeg or tif) of their quilt.

•    Quilters will be invited guests at Creek Rising and will receive a one-year membership to SFC.

•    Quilts will be exhibited online and outdoors at the live celebration. In the event of inclement weather, the quilts will be exhibited in a covered space.

We can’t wait to see the exciting and creative ways which participating quilters will interpret our theme, “Natural Connections.” Thank you for sharing this request!

Iris Eyes are Smiling

By Sally Sears

Wild iris, native and blue, smiled on the far bank of the Floataway pond. We planted a few as a Morningside neighbor’s gift and watched the plants thrive in the damp meadow at Zonolite Park. Blue Flag Iris (Iris virginica) spread quickly along the edges of the water, raising bright flags of true sky blue on top of sharp blue green leaves.

So imagine my wonder, turning to dismay the next year when they came back yellow instead of blue. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My iris eyes were looking at Blue Iris and seeing yellow. What had happened? Vivid yellow, bright as goldenrod, floated on top of the sharp leaves. Nothing blue in sight.

Yeoman Pete Densmore, head of the Friends of Zonolite Park, had put volunteers to work all that year yanking out cattails. Nobody wanted a pond full of cattails because they hid the pond surface and crowded out a range of birds. The removal was terrific, but I wondered if the yanking had somehow turned the nearby iris from blue to yellow.

My smart garden friends shrugged off my question. They of course wanted to see for themselves. A few weeks later, we came back. And to my amazement, the iris were blue again. Just as I remembered from the year before. Was I looking through lying eyes?

My gardening friends were amused and slightly condescending. Now, Sally, anybody can mistake yellow for blue, of course! Just enjoy how the hummingbirds are liking the iris.I burned inside. Lying Eyes? When Iris Eyes are Not Smiling!

I turned to the internet in a frenzy burning with humiliation. The very word iris means all colors. The Greek goddess of the rainbow is named Iris. The color of our eyes is the color of our own iris. This was not helping much. This year I went early in April, staring at the plants on the near side of the pond, daring the flowers to show up, wild to figure out if I am in fact crazy. I am not crazy. The buds starting to unfurl were yellow again.

Driving through Morningside I saw the same yellow iris in dozens of yards, beside mailboxes, in tidy gardens. Not a blue flag iris anywhere. All April I watched the yellow iris spread a buttery scarf along the pond edge. I bided my time.

In May, my crazy color mystery began to be resolved. On May Day, dozens of blue iris bloomed. A month ahead of the blue flag iris, a yellow European cousin (Iris pseudacorus) is enjoying the same habitat. The yellow iris can be a bit pushy, but both are thriving, both good for pulling pollutants out of the storm water pond.

And both are smiling treats for all of our iris eyes.

Chestnuts for Life

Thomas grips Chestnut trunk

When he was nine, Thomas Rudolph and his Morningside Elementary classmates in the fourth grade pushed chestnut seeds into pots to see how fast they would grow.

The seeds were a special hybrid hoping to restore the long-gone species to Atlanta. Chestnuts grow fast, and by summer, the foot tall seedlings outgrew the classroom.  You can eat the nuts these trees will grow before you get out of high school, the Chestnut Foundation teacher promised.

They did grow fast. The seedlings were two feet tall by the fall, when Thomas and other scouts from the Haygood Methodist troop planted them on the South Fork of Peachtree Creek on a steep slope.

WABE’s Myke Johns brought a microphone, recorded the excitement and broadcast it to all Atlanta. Thomas remembers that lots of people thought it was pretty cool.

Eighteen or so of the young trees made it through that first winter. But the excitement of the experiment began to fade as Thomas turned ten. Then eleven. The promise of tasting real chestnuts growing on the trees began to grow less important.

Middle school. High School and sports. Science class and lacrosse, ten years passed.

Then, this winter, a senior in high school, Thomas decided to check on the trees. He and his mom Monica walked from the Armand Park trailhead to the steep bank he remembered from ten years earlier.

They climbed, pulling aside wintery vines, looking hard at bare branches.

Then, overhead, a few thin leaves waved a hello. Thomas wondered if they were looking for him. There, in plain sight, he found the biggest of the five surviving chestnut trees.

Excited, Thomas leaned in.

As if waiting for him, spiny chestnut hulls lay in the leaf litter.  By his feet he saw the first harvest of chestnuts from the trees his class began as seeds.

He didn’t find any nuts left, though.  Chipmunks, possums, all kinds of chestnut-loving wildlife found them first. Still, he filled his fists with the prickly hulls and put his hand around the trunk of the tree. The trunk was thicker than he could grip. His smile was radiant.

That Chestnut Foundation scientist had been right. In ten years under the right conditions, chestnut trees can mature into nut bearing food sources. 

Thomas is off to Auburn University in the fall. The trees he and his classmates brought to life will be here when he comes back home to visit. If he times it right and gets there this fall before the chipmunks and squirrels, he can taste the chestnuts himself.

Thomas examines chestnut burrs

The Confluence Trail in Winter

By Dorothy Sussman

For most of my life, I have lived near water.  Growing up, it was the Hudson River in Northern New York, but for nearly five decades, I’ve lived not far from the South Fork of Peachtree Creek.  For many of those years, though, I hardly knew it existed. When I did notice it, I did so from a state highway bridge because the Creek was nearly impossible to access.

I remember my amazement when I first walked on the Confluence Trail as it broadened to a meadow near the point where the South and the North Forks joined. So this was the Creek! Who knew? We worked with a Boy Scout troop to whack and pull up choking invasives. Another time, people joined to plant chestnuts and another to pick up trash in a swale and another to mow the trail or help with native tree plantings.  Hard, gratifying work and lots of it. 

Today, I walk the trail with relative ease. I get on at Armand Park in my neighborhood and fairly soon reach a rain garden right on the trail.  It’s a glorious and thoughtfully constructed assembly of honey-colored boulders and native plants that slows storm-water runoff coming from a nearby culvert, preventing erosion and pollution of the creek. Right now, the plants are dormant (they need a rest, too), and the boulders even more prominent. Together, they hold the soil as if to say, “We’re staying put.”

Farther on, dun-colored river oats hug the banks as I walk through a cathedral of trees. Here the trail offers a fuller view of the creek itself as it meanders along before approaching the I-85 overpass. A snapping turtle suns itself on a log that juts into the water. Birds keep watch from water oaks and pines. Ahead, native trees and plants, such as yellowwood and sumac, installed a few years ago with the help of Trees Atlanta volunteers, dot the landscape. When they leaf out in spring, these natives and many others will help mute nearby highway traffic. 

And then, across the meadow, rises the magnificent 175-foot-long Confluence Bridge that now spans the junction of the North and South Forks. It glows copper in the sun, beckoning people like you and me to pause for a bird’s eye-view of the creek and then to walk the trail. When it opens, the bridge will also sport a ramp replete with viewing platforms, that we can take to enter the Confluence Trail going south or to head north and connect to other parts of the trail system. I can’t wait!

During this pandemic year, the Confluence Trail has been a gift to many people, offering us a way to be in the natural world—in all seasons. I hope you will make time in your lives to walk the trail whenever you can and take in its rugged yet fragile beauty. You might even decide you’d like to get involved in protecting the creek and its trails, and that would be all right with me.  Perfect, in fact.

Life & Death for Breakfast

By Sally Sears

If the great blue heron knew we were watching, he didn’t show it.

His fiery yellow eyes glared into the cold water of the pond in Rock Creek beside the old granite quarry.

Legs like stilts upheld his football sized body, blue like the water.

A few feet upstream, a sudden curve of a slick black comma told us an otter was noiselessly working the same pond.

Susan Berthelot took a knee, her long camera lens at a perfect horizontal. She caught the instant the heron’s neck uncurled. The beak came up empty.

One leg bent backwards, moving the heron inches upstream. Another strike. Nothing.

A minute passed. The otter dove under. Eric Bowles’ view finder did not move from his eye.

A third lunge of that impossibly long beak. Success. A silver fish, maybe four inches long, wiggled in the heron’s bill. It kept moving as it slid down the throat.

Life and death for breakfast.

We turned to each other wide eyed.  The hunt wowed the nine quiet birdwatchers on that cold Sunday when Georgia Audubon searched the public parks in Morningside for the Christmas Bird Count.

Breakfast is life or death for many birds. Finding enough to eat is constant. Georgia Audubon Conservation director Adam Betuel reminds me birds cannot store much fat because they have to be light enough to fly. Sothey eat all the time.

Life or death for the fish, too.  It grew from minnow to meal in the healthier habitat of the South Fork of Peachtree Creek, joining a growing number of living things calling the urban watershed home.  This critical flyway along Peachtree Creek’s tributaries is important enough the US Fish and Wildlife Service named it one of only 17 Urban Wildlife Refuges in the nation.

The heron and the otter were still fishing as we moved away to count other birds.

By noon we'd seen 46 different species of birds in about 2 miles of creek flowing through Herbert Taylor Park, Zonolite Park and Morningside Nature Preserve.

When we finally put our cameras down leader Eric Bowles reached deep into his I-Bird digital records to compare our totals to prior years.

It revealed the best kind of reward.

Every year in Zonolite alone we've seen more species.

24 in 2018. 28 the next year. 29 in 2020 and then this year, a new record.

31 different kinds of birds.

This steady growth in species is a payoff for the work of restoring native plants to the creek banks. Birds and humans are finding these parks a good place to be as a new year begins.

That cold Sunday was two days before Georgia's runoff election. In the urgent days that followed, it was easy to forget the victory in nature.

The goals of this trail and creek restoration stretch well into the future. Still, the rewards are all around us, waiting for us to pay attention. One bird at a time.

Floating Through Morningside

By Sally Sears

With a whoosh, our inflatable kayak filled with air as we launched our adventure on the South Fork of Peachtree Creek. My friend Amy Cromwell and I had mapped out our plan to float the creek from Emory to Morningside’s Zonolite Park, and a brilliant Saturday morning was the perfect time for our trip.

We slid down a steep bank at Clifton Road, noting the din of traffic on the corridor overhead and dropped the kayak into the creek. Wading into the water, we covered the first 15 feet easily, guiding the kayak as it bumped into rocks, and stumbling some in the boots of our chest-high waders. The next 100 yards were tougher. Water seeped into our leaky boots; rocks punched at the kayak, testing its hull.  Would it hold? Whose idea was this anyway?

Then, at Sage Hill one sweet pool was deep enough for us to float a few yards. Delicious! Too soon I felt the rocks through the bottom of the kayak as it flexed, so I  got out to walk. The water level was higher at the South Fork’s junction with Peavine Creek, so we were able to float there. We passed easily under the bridge at Briarcliff Road and into Herbert Taylor Park. The sand bar ahead held company: a mom and two children startled as we floated past. Our boots were heavy with water, our arms scratched from overhanging branches we’d tangled with earlier. Still, Amy and I felt pretty righteous.

At the next turn, a blue heron stared us into silence. The creek was quiet; dogwoods lifted their first red leaves skyward, and the sun caught on mica flakes, sparkling them to life. Past the bridge at Johnson Road and the US Geological Survey monitoring station, the creek spread out and grew shallow again.

Walking, I discovered that the sandy banks weren’t as firm as they were upstream. They sucked at my boots.

We neared Zonolite Park, where the bank sloped enough to take out the kayak easily, but the last 100 yards held the biggest challenge. The three-foot-wide trunk of a poplar spanned the creek at water level, blocking mounds of styrofoam and human-tossed junk. We tried lifting the kayak up the steep bank, but kudzu made the climb too treacherous. We considered shoving the kayak through the junk, but Amy found other logs beneath the poplar. Then, in one graceful maneuver, she scaled the trunk, cracked one of the submerged logs with her feet, and tugged the kayak through the mess to the final sand bar. Bolstered by her success, I scrambled up and over and felt my boot slip on the bark. Face first, I landed in the creek.  Total immersion! Cold, wet, and done!

Time to head back to Emory. Our three-hour float ended with a seven-minute drive to our starting point. What an adventure. We are already planning our next float.

South Fork Conservancy installs pedestrian bridge to connect trails along Peachtree Creek

By Atlanta Intown

After years of work and fundraising,  South Fork Conservancy saw the fruition of a dream as its 175-foot Confluence pedestrian bridge was lifted into place by one of the largest cranes in North America on Aug. 21.

The $2.5 million state-of-the-art bridge lies northwest of I-85 between Piedmont Road and Lindbergh Drive. In addition to connecting nearby neighborhoods and parkland, it will also provide linkages to three regional trails: The Atlanta BeltLine, PATH400, and eventually the Peachtree Creek Greenway.

“This is an impressive project which will connect 25 acres of new greenspace to one of the most park-deprived areas of the city,” said Atlanta City Councilmember Jennifer Ide. “Having easy access to natural areas is critical now more than ever, and this bridge, made possible by South Fork Conservancy, will deliver nature trails and creek views to thousands of people.”

Constructed out of Corten steel and concrete decking, it required one of the largest cranes in North America to lift it into place. Most importantly, the bridge is designed so as not to disturb the health of the creek. The bridge also features an ADA accessible ramp.

“This is one of the most ambitious projects our organization has ever supported,” said Michael Halicki, Park Pride executive director. “South Fork Conservancy is blazing new trails and taking a bold step with this pedestrian bridge to connect Atlantans to more greenspaces and natural waterways.”

To date, South Fork Conservancy has completed five miles of trails, including catalyzing the development of three parks, along Peachtree Creek’s South Fork. The Conservancy was recently awarded one of the first-ever Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Act (GOSA) grants to further its goal of increasing creek access as a source of recreation, inspiration, education, and community connectivity for all Atlantans.

Why is the Creek Rising?

I am calling friends to invite them to join me at the annual Creek Rising Party April 23, 2020 and I realize the creeks are really rising today. The weather service warns of flooding. DeKalb County and Atlanta watershed departments announce sewer spills. The very name Creek Rising contains a certain urgency.

Today these liquid dynamic cords binding Atlanta together are tearing at their own banks, shoving sand and soil downstream and generally reminding us that we are not in control.

A US Geological Survey gauge sits at the Johnson Road bridge over the South Fork of Peachtree Creek, spitting out real time data.  Right now it is flowing at 100 cubic feet per second, 55 degrees F., above average turbidity. All this changes after it rains. Quickly. The creek rises.

We named our annual fund raising party for the South Fork Conservancy “Creek Rising” casually. It’s turned out to be the perfect name. Used to be, people actually said to each other about something important “God Willing and the Creeks Don’t Rise.” I haven’t heard that in a long time, but it contains a crucial truth.  If the creeks rose the roads flooded and you might not be going anywhere. You are not in control.

Our first party, more than ten years ago in late April, Anne Quatrano at Floataway Café created a special trail mix for guests to nibble as we explored the new trails along the creek at Zonolite.   Sweet, savory, spicy: nobody could get enough of it.

We served a drink I think I named Swamp Water. It was dark rum and I even wanted something green to float on top for realism. Martha Porter Hall and her husband Van gently discouraged the appearance of algae in favor of robust helpings to raise money for our fledgling environmental association.  We don’t call our special drink swamp water any more. That first year we had a few dozen friends and raised a few thousand dollars and it’s I’m calling friends to invite them to join me at the annual Creek Rising party April been growing ever since.

The raw dirt meadow reclaimed from asbestos contamination filled in with wild flowers and birds. We got a bigger tent in case it rained. It often rained. One year the cottonwood trees shed fluff so thick it covered the trail through the meadow and into the woods. It looked to many guests like snow. 75 degree snow? That was a fun optical treat.

The music is fun. Board Member Tony Powers, City of Decatur Commissioner, cooks fiendishly good food. By now the trail explorations are more than showing our progress building connecting trails from Emory to the BeltLine in Buckhead. They bring the party to the creek itself.

The duck race is fun. We race yellow rubber ducks, snatching the first winners for prizes. Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Emerita Sally Bethea catches them all so we won’t send rubber pollution down Peachtree Creek to the Chattahoochee River.

The race is a potent reminder we owe something to the creeks. We’re paying attention. We are not in control, but we can help pay attention to the creeks. This party of ours helps the South Fork Conservancy build trails to bring us back.

Brave Boots Conquer a Rising Creek