Have you been to Arabia Mountain? Despite growing up in the greater Atlanta area, living here since graduation, and seeing scores of amazing photos from the Davidson-Arabia Nature Preserve and Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area over the years, I had never visited Arabia Mountain until this month. It lies east of I-285 along I-20, only a 30-minute drive from the heart of Atlanta.

Do you follow basketball? I don’t, but I am still vaguely aware of this whole March Madness thing. Well, Arabia Mountain sponsors and participates in an event called Monadnock Madness. You see, Arabia Mountain is a monadnock – that word does not roll easily off the tongue, does it? I’ll let the website explain:

“A monadnock is a special type of mountain that is formed when a massive blob of lava hardens and creates a very hard clump under the earth. Over millions of years the softer rock around the clump is eroded away leaving a huge mountain that juts out of the flat landscape around it. This process is how Arabia, Panola, and Stone Mountains were all formed.”

Every year in March, Monadnock Madness encourages folks to get up and out to move their bodies, see our three monadnocks, and learn about the rare and endangered plants that live in this highly unique landscapes.

Adam and I, along with my fellow Scotties Shannon and Cara, and a sweet little pup named Ollie didn’t attempt a triple hike of the three monadnocks, but we did have a very pleasant trip out to Arabia Mountain in early March.

After a short walk in pinewoods, we found ourselves on granite. This strange landscape was fun to explore, though we were always mindful not to tread on these special plants. The most noticeable species is Diamorpha smallii, a bright red succulent that lives in solution pools, shallow basins on these rocky outcrops.

The deeper basins also have grasses, mosses, and in some cases vines or cedar. The very large basins may have stunted pines. Lichen is everywhere, and is the only living thing more prevalent than the diamorpha.

On this day, we saw a few fallen trees, presumably from later winter storms, and a bunch of sad, squishy opuntia native cacti that really did not appreciate the unusually cold winter we had.

Because the trail is mostly rocky with little dirt and trees, stacked stone cairns mark the way to go.

After walking on the granite a bit and inspecting an area that seemed to briefly be a quarry, the surrounding trees fall away and a short hike up bare granite will brought us to the top of Arabia Mountain and 360º views. Beautiful!

After exploring all around the top of the mountain, and having a little picnic for the pooch’s lunch, Shannon guided us in some poolside meditation. What a lovely spot for such a calming activity… I recommend it. After that, it was just a quick walk back to the car, followed by a quick drive into the city – Arabia mountain is so close for what it is. I can’t believe it took me so long to get there!

I would like to hike at Arabia’s sister monadnock, Panola Mountain, in the next week or two and see if the diamorpha are blooming yet. I’d like to get a few pictures of that. Or better yet, maybe I’ll schedule the Monadnock Madness triple hike for late March of next year and see all sorts of blooming things then – who is in?!

Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area
3787 Klondike Rd
Lithonia, GA 30038