Highs and lows lie off the path

What do people see when they come to Columbia County?

This is a good week to find out. Columbia County, especially the area in and

around West Lake and Jones Creek, provides lots of housing for Masters

guests. They won't see much of Columbia County beyond a couple of golf

courses and a few restaurants, unless a local provides a tour.

We're not exactly the kind of community that has guided tours. Our

historically significant sites are few and far between.

A few years ago, I hired a new reporter and took her on a mini-tour of the

county. It reminded me of the scene in National Lampoon's European Vacation,

when the family is stuck in traffic on a roundabout; Chevy Chase's character

keeps pointing out Big Ben and Parliament as they pass the buildings over

and over.

Here, it's pretty much Savannah Rapids, Justice Center. Drive far enough,

and it's Clarks Hill Lake, Appling Courthouse. Grove-town. Harlem.

There also is an unbeaten path in Columbia County, however - stuff you don't

see unless you know to look for it. Here's the high point, the low point -

literally - and something in between:

A high point: Burks Mountain. Yes, we have a mountain range. Sort of. The

little mini-mountains are best viewed from the Clarks Hill Dam, looking

east.

Don't expect Everest. Columbia County is pretty much a plain because of the

Savannah River. But Burks and Mt. Carmel are mountainous "geographic

anomalies" rising from that plain.

They don't rise far. Burks Mountain's elevation is just 475 feet; Mt. Carmel

towers over it at 537 feet. In fact, they aren't even the county's highest

elevations; that point is on Cobbham Road at the McDuffie County line, a

patch of asphalt rising to the dizzying height of 606 feet above sea level.

The low point: Commuters on River Watch Park-way probably don't realize

they're passing within a few hundred feet of the lowest point in Columbia

County.

It's inside the rock quarry between the parkway and the Augusta Canal.

There's a marker on the canal towpath describing the quarry, but about all

you can see of it from there is a big pile of rubble and dirt. A couple of

years ago we asked for permission to photograph inside the quarry, and they

reacted as if we were looking for weapons of mass destruction. So we flew

over and took pictures from the air.

It's a hole in the ground that produces a lot of rock for road-paving, and

its bottom is more than 500 feet below sea level - deep enough to drop Burks

Mountain inside. Even though the hole is man-made, it is a thing of almost

industrial beauty. You can see part of it along the power line that crosses

Evans-to-Locks Road near Savannah Rapids Pavilion.

A truly remarkable place that few of us, outside an organized tour, will

ever see: Heggie Rock. Located near Appling off Old Louisville Road, Heggie

Rock is a cousin to Stone Mountain.

Heggie Rock once was doomed to become another quarry. It's now owned by

Georgia's Nature Conservancy, which restricts access to the mammoth

outcropping's fragile ecosystem.

Those conservationists would probably have a cow to know that when I was a

kid, families used to drive out on the rock to picnic and enjoy the

breathtaking view. We weren't ecologically sophisticated enough to know that

we shouldn't leave tire tracks across the moss, which survived in spite of a

lack of human protectors.

I'd much rather have a conservationist group protecting Heggie Rock than

guards at a quarry - especially when the conservationists let you take

pictures.

ost of our visitors this week will revel in the hyper-manicured beauty of

the Augusta National Golf Club, and many will spend their nights in Columbia

County where unscripted natural beauty abounds - if you know where to look

for it, in a roundabout way.

Barry L. Paschal is publisher of The Columbia County News-Times. E-mail

comments to bpaschal@newstimesonline.com.)