Stone Mountain

On Tuesday we went to Stone Mountain Park in Stone Mountain, GA. Stone Mountain is the largest piece of exposed granite in the world. The "mountain" was created billions of years ago when the Continents collided and due to the pressure and heat, a large pocket of magma was created underground. After millions of years of cooling and then erosion, the land around the magma eroded leaving part of the magma turned granite rock exposed. While most of the rock is underground, 800 feet of the rock is exposed. The distance across the rock above ground is 2.5 miles. Below ground the distance is over 10 miles.

In the early 1920's an artist / sculptor came up with an idea to create a sculpture on the face of Stone Mountain honoring Civil War Heroes Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis. The carving wasn't finished until after WWII.

One interesting fact is that the man who first started the carving quit and left to create his own project which later became Mount Rushmore. Other artists, sculptors, stone quarers and workers took on the responsibility of finishing the creation in the mountain. Standing on the ground and looking at the mountain it doesn't look all that big, but in actuality it is 160 feet wide and 75 feet tall.

The park normally has a lot of other attractions like a train ride around the mountain, amusement park type rides, etc. Because it is off season and a weekday, most of the attractions were closed. We did get to see a 4-D movie, check out the museum and ride up to the top of Stone Mountain on the sky lift. With the perfect weather at 82 degrees and a very slight breeze it was relaxing to hang out there for a while on top of the mountain. The rest of the park was closed, so that was all we got to do there.

View from the top of Stone Mountain

Another View - I thought the views were so great that I had to post a few of the pictures. It was a great clear day. You could look out to see the skyline of Atlanta and some other major cities from the top.

Julie, standing on top of the world's largest piece of exposed granite.

Den looking very zen - hanging out on a rock. We were surprised that there were so many trees growing on the rock. The entire rock use to be covered in trees. Through years of erosion, most of them are gone, but some have found a way to stay.

Another view looking out from the top of Stone Mountain

The cable car that takes passengers up and down the mountain. Supposedly there is a VERY steep hiking trail. We weren't up for that so we took the tram. It might not look that big, but it holds up to 80 people.

Dennis entering the tram to head back down

The ride back down.

Another view from top

Dennis at the top. There was a very large area fenced off that you could hike around and look out by walking around the top of the mountain.

Here is somewhat of an idea looking at Stone Mountain from the parking lot.

Here we have the carving of Lee, Jackson and Jefferson

Here you can see that the carving looks small but when you enter the museum you can get an idea as to how big the carving really is.

Here I am standing in front of a reporduction of the actual size of one of the horse's bridals inside of the museum.

This shows how large the carving actually is. It was pretty cool!