Back Country Horsemen of North Georgia has proposed a
partnership with the FS for upgrading and maintaining a small trailhead called
Jacks River Fields on the West side of the Cohutta Wilderness. Facilities
have diminished recently and we were in danger of losing it altogether. There
is only room for 5-6 rigs, and then not extremely large ones…and it’s
over an hour drive on a single track FS road to get there, but this is a
beautiful little spot at the intersection of JacksRiver
and a small stream. This is a riparian area and ecologically sensitive. It’s
near both South Fork and the Pinhoti Trail (both horse) and the only horse
camping in this area. It even has a small grassy area for hand grazing.
As part of that, we proposed a trial of a couple of small
corrals instead of the usual “parking chutes” or high line posts,
since the horses are required to be across the creek from the camping spots. BCHNG
will fund these. We would like the pipe corrals to be sturdy and
strong. Since this is a remote area, they would have to be
installed in a manner that makes the materials extremely difficult to
steal. The horse area is on a slight slope in the trees, the soil is
fairly soft, a little boggy when wet, so we would like to use mats….another
easy item to steal.
If anyone out there has suggestions, recommendations, and/or
experience with building such corrals or could point me to someone or give me a
URL link to something that you have experience with, I would appreciate it.
I have Googled this extensively and read all the easily obtainable stuff. What
I need is some input from any of you who have “been there, done that”.
