Jonah , left, and Zana giving a reading at Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve. (Photo by Aleksandr Sasha Greenspan)
Co-authors Jonah McDonald and Zana Pouncey talk about Hiking Atlanta’s Hidden Forests.
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Hikers, lace up your boots or tighten those sandal straps. Some of metro Atlanta’s best-kept hiking secrets might not be a secret much longer. Last month, local naturalists Jonah McDonald and Zana Pouncey released Hiking Metro Atlanta’s Hidden Forests: An Hour or Less From Downtown. The book comes six months after the release of the first volume: Hiking Intown Atlanta’s Hidden Forests: Inside And On The Perimeter. Together, the two-volume compendium marks a comprehensive collection of hikes, trails, parks and preserves in Atlanta, including at least 90 places that have never appeared in a guidebook before.
McDonald is a park ranger at Mason Mill Park as part of DeKalb County’s Recreation, Parks and Cultural Affairs, and, at the time, Pouncey was a park ranger at the Stonecrest’s Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve. The two initially met at the Environmental Educator Alliance Conference in March 2020 at Jekyll Island, on the eve of the global lockdown. Despite the terrors of the pandemic around them, Pouncey and McDonald became good friends.
“Though neither of us knew this, my plans for writing a new hiking guidebook were coming together at exactly the same time as Zana’s plans for changing jobs,” said McDonald. “I was looking for a co-author to partner with, and, when I found out that Zana — who is someone I trust, like and work well with, was between jobs — I reached out with a co-authorship proposal.”
“It was very serendipitous that our paths continued to cross,” said Pouncey, who now works for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), a nonprofit watchdog of the National Park Service. “When I left my position at DeKalb County, Jonah approached me and asked about being a co-author for the books. [I knew] he’d written the original version 10 years ago and was making updates and, of course, I said yes.”
As Pouncey knew, McDonald was kind of “the guy” for hiking anywhere in Georgia’s capital. In 2002, he hiked all of the Appalachian Trail, starting north and trekking south, eventually landing in Atlanta at the end of his epic journey. McDonald liked the city so much that he decided to settle in, and he soon started leading hikes and walks in metro area parks, leading him to publish his first (2014) edition of Hiking Atlanta’s Hidden Forests: Intown and Out.
After a further decade of rambling and exploring every urban nature nook and becoming a bit of a social media star for Atlanta nature lovers, McDonald decided it was time to update the guidebook into a two-volume set. Knowing what a daunting task this would be as a father working a full-time job, McDonald needed some help, which is when he reached out to Pouncey.
“I think these books are better for having two people’s brains behind them,” said Pouncey. “We brought in our own ideas and perspectives that together made the books more robust. Jonah and I worked really well together, and I appreciated [his] organization and communication.”
The two had a common goal in mind: to meticulously map out as many trails and parks in the metro area as they could and help more people discover and confidently explore even the most obscure places. This meant McDonald and Pouncey personally visiting every park, preserve and trailhead featured in the new two-volume edition. But more than geo-mapping and describing, McDonald and Pouncey also devised a rating system for the trails that included not just length and difficulty but also safety, public transit options, hidden gems and secret histories that few Atlanta hikers know about — like the “mule” carving in the granite outcrop at Line Creek Nature Area in Peachtree City or the old bathtub trapped between two trees at Decatur’s Briarlake Forest Park.
But it wasn’t just Pouncey and McDonald turning this guidebook into a reality. The two enlisted more than 50 volunteers who helped with testing the hike routes that now appear in the books. Over two years, these friends, family members, colleagues and even some strangers beta-tested what Pouncey and McDonald had written, pointing out ambiguities in the text or maps and taking detailed notes.
The result is a comprehensive pair of guidebooks on nature spots in Georgia’s capital. Seventy of these 126 hikes were not in the original guidebook and some — such as Clinton Nature Preserve, Lionel Hampton Beecher Hills Park, and, surprisingly, Lake Charlotte Nature Preserve off Moreland Avenue — have never been featured in any guidebook.
The two authors had their book launch at the Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve on June 14 with a book talk, followed by a one-hour nature walk around the preserve, which was partially rained out by a summer shower.
“Now that everything’s finally finished, it’s really satisfying, and I feel proud of what we’ve accomplished,” said Pouncey, who was exhausted by the (in total) three-year writing process. “I think we’ve had our heads down working nonstop; hopefully, now that we’re finished, we can make time to celebrate.”
The pair is doing various talks and signings, including at the Big Haynes Creek Nature Center in Conyers (September 27); DeKalb History Center (September 4); and the Decatur Book Festival (October 3 and October 4).
As for McDonald, who’s written four guidebooks now (Check out his second publication Secret Atlanta: a Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure), he’s looking forward to a little R&R. “I don’t imagine that I’ve written my last book, but this project was so time consuming, I am ready for a break.”
Or perhaps a hike through a hidden forest?
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Jeff Dingler is an Atlanta-based author and entertainer. A graduate of Skidmore College with an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University, he’s written for New York Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Tiny Love, Newsweek, WIRED, Salmagundi and Flash Fiction Magazine. More information at jeffdingler.org.
