Hike: Rockdale Park

Last week I went venturing into the area that is deemed Rockdale Park. It appears to be part of a future phase of Atlanta's BeltLine Project.

http://beltline.org/progress/planning/master-planning/

http://beltline.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Atlanta-BeltLine_Subarea-9_Master-Plan.pdf

The webpage promises, "As Atlanta continues to grow, the Atlanta BeltLine will provide the framework for smart growth, enhancing the city’s sustainability and economic vitality. The Atlanta BeltLine Redevelopment Plan and Atlanta BeltLine Master Plans include recommendations for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), which guides the growth of vibrant, livable, mixed-use communities by applying national best practices for mixing uses, strengthening the pedestrian and bicycle realm, compact development, and managing parking."


The plans look amazing, and I hope to keep an eye on the progress and see what becomes of this area. Even so, in its raw form, the small clear cut area is fascinating to those like me who tend to trod in zigzags, wander well off the trail, hither thither and yon, and since there's not yet a trail laid out here, the whole area is wide open for exploration.

Looking back toward the sign/entrance for Rockdale Park

Jaunting up the hill to the left, I trek amidst the broken glass and debris. The world is a museum gallery, everything placed just so, like wild cascading paint splatters or delicate and graceful brushstrokes, a shoe fading in the sun, a likely home for spiders or a shelter for a shrew, a busted rusted boob tube with its naked capacitors and resistors jutting out toward fallen leaves, Wild Kingdom memories melded with the true force of the elements. I find myself wondering what hand dropped these items in place. Not sure their purpose, but the juxtaposition of the vial, the acorn cap and the shredded tire holds remarkable beauty for my eye. I can appreciate this for what it is, gotta love some disarray; but at the same time, as I look upon the mess, I'm saddened by the carelessness of it all, the work it will take to clean this up, the damage done by whatever chemicals leaked from these paint cans and rubber tire treads.

My walks often include picking up plastic, gathering bottles, cans, attempting to leave negative trace, leave things cleaner than I found them, but this heap would take weeks and trip after trip. I intend to hike back to this space, try to do my part, but honestly, it is difficult sometimes to want to clean up the messes that are scattered here in Georgia.

A few years ago, when I lived in Marietta, I would look at the scattered Chik-Fil-A wrappers, coffee cups, cans, bottles as I drove to and from work and wonder at the state of things. Why? Who are these slobs that just toss their trash out the window of their car? It's not difficult to put trash in proper cans. It's almost like they're making a concerted effort to foul up my world. Beautiful backdrop of a pine forest on both sides of this road, a wonderful little pocket of green before the avenue opened up for a cleared out soccer field tucked behind a church, all that is and could be clean and pretty spoiled by the litter of a careless commuter.

I eventually came to the point where I couldn't sit back and stare at the heaps of garbage anymore. I started taking two large garbage bags with me and walking up the road a ways, then turning and walking back. The first time, my ambitions were heftier than my bags. I filled them both up by the time I'd even gone ten feet, so then I had to lug them, filled with beer bottles, styrofoam and random refuse for a half mile. This cleanup effort went on for quite some time, week after week, but it seemed like I never made a dent. Folks were throwing garbage out along this beautiful street faster than anyone could collect it. Despite this, I was happy to continue my little effort, I figured I'd eventually have a clean roadway to admire on my drive to work.

Now, garbage is one thing, but the truly confounding thing about all of this is the sheer volume of beer bottles, cans and mini liquor bottles I was finding. It is honestly a travesty that there appears to be either many many drunk drivers, which is awful enough, or one very prolific drinker responsible for all of this. My mind runs through the thoughts that these people are out there on the road, day in and day out getting hammered or impaired in their cars, driving past schoolkids, and causing the entire world to not only look littered and fouled up, but also endangering everyone around them. As if that weren't bad enough, several weeks into this cleanup effort, I stumbled upon one, then another, then another makeshift pipes of some sort. One made from pens, one from soldered copper piping used for who knows what crack or weed or whatever. Either way, I had no idea what to do with them. Do I throw them in my garbage? What if they trace this back to my home, will an officer accept that I was just cleaning up the roadway as the excuse to finding drug paraphernalia in my recycle bin? Do I leave them? Now this also appears dangerous, what toxins are leaking into the wild, what if a child finds this? This attempt to clean up my world went downhill from here, as the following week I found a plastic soda bottle filled to the brim with used needles, so now my thoughts race about accidentally getting stabbed with a dirty needle as I'm picking up trash. All in all, an enlightening experience. It opened my eyes to the sheer magnitude of filth that is on the Atlanta roadways and the amount of work it will take to clean this up. That said, it is still worth the effort, every little bit should help, and I intend to continue to do my part to keep Atlanta beautiful.

The next photo is kinda sad, I am going to head out there with some kind of heavy-duty shears and cut this tire off of this poor little tree before it's too late. For that matter, the tire problem is another issue entirely and I'd like to get into a discussion on that topic at some point with my blog. For now, please visit the following sites for more information on cleaning up the tires. Thanks for reading! If you wander out here, enjoy the hike, take some pictures and do your part to keep our world beautiful!

http://greenlaw.org/scrap-tires?mode=p
http://publichealth.gsu.edu/1621.html

Walking beyond the park, the area opens up to a clearcut power line run.

Algae stream at the bottom of the Rockdale Park hill.

Rockdale Park leads to a portion of West Midtown that is still in development.

This entire area appears to be inhabited by the homeless, as there are heaps of refuse and heavily trod paths going along here. What is kind of terrifying is this hole cut into the fence of a playground, cigarette butts litter the area as if someone has crept here daily watching the children play...makes me shudder at the possibility that there could be sketchy creepers roaming about along here. Hope security is beefed up here as they develop this area. Cameras and danger call boxes to deter harm.