Recon Jasper Trailways

Jasper County, Georgia has a great big backyard — find lots of ways to enjoy it!
Here is a little bit about Recon Jasper from the man who mapped it.

I’ve often thought, and sometimes said, that the 125,000 acres of public land in Jasper County will one day be a much greater benefit to our county and to our citizens than it’s viewed it today. “The government land” that makes up about 25% of the area of our county (US Oconee National Forest, US Piedmont Wildlife Refuge, and the State Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center) is likely not a big blip on the radar of most locals. I’m sure that some view it as a drag on our local economy. I suspect most local residents think about the resource much less than I have, and until recently that’s not a lot even for me – someone who loves the outdoors and has surveyed land all over the county for 40 years.

When doing recon research for this site, when riding my bike on dirt roads in south Jasper County, or when surveying land adjacent to the National Forest, most of the folks I encounter are from outside of Jasper County. Maybe that’s one factor explaining why locals aren’t drawn more to it than they are. Maybe they – maybe you – view the national forest as a place where the ‘Atlanta hunters’ or ‘nature people’ come to hunt or hike. Or maybe it’s where those ‘horse people’ ride. There is a good bit of truth to those statements. After all, folks around here don’t really hike, right? They just walk in the woods. I certainly put myself in that camp. I’ve never considered my self a ‘hiker.’ I don’t have backpacks or elaborate hiking equipment; I don’t plan weekend excursions from point A to point B; I just sometimes go out and enjoy a walk in the woods. That’s hiking, I guess, but I’m not ‘a hiker.’ I do have elaborate cycling equipment to ride dirt roads, and I’ve done plenty of that, but mostly on county-maintained dirt roads that go through and around the public lands.

Well lately I have been doing a lot more walking in the woods; and most of the time I’ve been carrying a bush ax to clear trails while I’m ‘hiking’ and a GPS to more accurately map the forest service roads and trails, updating the information in Open Street Map. I recently completed a long gravel/dirt road race where the course included some of the Ocmulgee River Trail system and a few Forest Service roads. For these and other reasons, my attention and interests have begun to shift more to the great asset of public lands that we have here in Jasper County. I’ve had a very good time re-conning some areas I was unfamiliar with, and I’ve learned a lot that I should have known before now about my home county.

Recon Jasper is my project to explore the county, to map and document it’s features, and to share what I find with other people, hopefully many of them locals, who want to enjoy it as well. This site is not only about Jasper County’s public lands, but I expect a good bit of it will be focused in that direction because Recon Jasper is about enjoying the outdoors and outdoor activities – and we have a whole lot of room to do that on our public lands. We have a great big backyard – go outside and play!

Robert Jordan – March 2019