Quick SOTA at Currahee Mountain While Scouting North Georgia Motorcycle Roads

One of the reasons Ben KO4KVH and I got motorcycles last year was because we wanted to ride in the Georgia mountains: sometimes to simply enjoy the ride, and others to get to trailheads and hike. Because how cool would it be to take a motorcycle to the mountains for a SOTA activation?

However, the majority of our riding to date has been on backroads around our house, and although these roads provide a nice selection of curves, we have been questioning whether we’re ready to venture out to North Georgia for riding. Therefore, we decided to spend Saturday in North Georgia to see what we were up against and where we needed to level up on the bikes to make rides to the mountains happen. We opted to go to Toccoa: it’s about a 2h drive from us, and there’s a 2-point summit on Currahee Mountain (W4G/NG-086). It’s been about 2.5 years since we’ve activated this one, so why not?

The route to Toccoa had us on GA-17 for most of the ride, much of it being a divided highway. Where we’ve both taken our bikes on the secondaries near the house, there was significantly more traffic in Elberton and Lavonia than we’re generally used to. We quickly realized that we should spend more time riding through some of our nearby towns to get more comfortable in and around such traffic. The last few miles before we got to the trailhead did provide some twists and turns, which looked like a potentially fun ride on a bike.

We arrived at Currahee around noon and started our ~3-mile ascent to the top. Along the way, we heard K4KK calling CQ on 146.52 at Big Cedar Mountain (W4G/NG-023), and we tried to see if we could make contact. We weren’t able to make contact initially, but W2BBQ heard my attempts, and he and I QSY’d to 146.500 where we said he’d listen out for us on .52 when we reached the summit. I went back to .52 to monitor, and we continued our hike to the summit.

After a few minutes, we reached a point on the trail where we successfully made a QSO with K4KK right before he was about to go QRT. During the exchange, we let him know that we were on the way to the summit of Currahee. As we continued to the summit, we were hearing K4KK telling folks that he was monitoring to keep an ear out for us so we could all get a summit-to-summit (S2S) QSO.

Mountain views from atop Currahee Mountain W4G/NG-086

Not wanting to keep K4KK waiting, we pushed to the summit. When we got to the top, we enjoyed the mountain view off the rocks and walked around for a little bit before finally settling on a spot for the activation. We let K4KK know we’d made it, secured our S2S QSO, and he turned the frequency over to us. We then logged a QSO with N2BG and caught back up with W2BBQ before closing the activation with a QSO from W4KLL.

KO4KVG and KO4KVH at the summit of Currahee Mountain

Following our very quick activation (7 minutes!), KO4KVH and I started our descent back to the trailhead. We made it back to the car in about an hour, and it was then time to start thinking about grabbing a late lunch. We decided on Pizza Hut Classic in Royston, GA, as who can say no to pizza and nostalgia?

The trek to Pizza Hut Classic took us on a different route than when we came in. We figured it would be a good opportunity to see if these were bikeable roads. Where the roads were more twisty than what we typically ride, nothing seemed to be outside of our skill set. Before we knew it, we’d arrived at Pizza Hut Classic.

Seeing the red booths, the Tiffany-style lamps overhead, and the Book It!* posters were a great nod to 80s/90s nostalgia that we’d hoped to see. And the Meat Lover’s Pan Pizza was also a win. It certainly won’t be our last trip there!

KO4KVG ready to enjoy lunch at Pizza Hut Classic

After leaving the restaurant, we continued along the twisty backroads, further convinced that we need to check these routes out on our bikes (and besides, there are several state parks along the way!). With a little more slow speed practice and experience riding through busier towns, we should be ready to return to the mountains on two wheels.

Until then, 73 KO4KVG

*I ate my share of free Personal Pan Pizzas. No app required!