Chamblee54

PG has now walked the complete beltline. He finished the part between West End Marta station, and the Bankhead station. In show business tradition, he saved the best for last. Go HERE to see a map.
Only three people made it to this Thursday adventure. It started going down Murphy Avenue, and turning on Allene Street. Soon, the first of many brick warehouses appeared, with an abandoned rail corridor behind them. The first tunnel of the day went under Murphy Avenue and Lee Street, and led to “Warehouse Row”. Many of these buildings are not in use today, and are surrounded by razor wire topped fence. This was the first time that PG and Sandy walked down this corridor. On PG’s previous trip to this area, the hikers took a concrete path on White Street. The next street south is Dimmock Street, home of Atlanta’s historic outdoor reefer market.
At Ralph David Abernathy the trio ( Led by Angel) went through another tunnel, and went down a walkway that is 500 percent better than the last time PG went through here . Another tunnel, under Lucille Street, had an art installation at it’s entrance. The trail led under I20 and Westview Drive. The beltline goes through a residential area now. Some of the houses are not boarded up.
The bridge over MLK Drive was life threatening before, but now had a smooth wooden walkway. Next on the agenda was a mound of tree cuttings and soil, that is in the beltline path. Purist Angel ignored a smooth path nearby to lead Sandy and PG over the mound. ” It’s ok”. Shortly after this was Lena Street, which leads to the Ashby Marta station. This had been the starting point of the previous hike.
There is a part of the beltline corridor that goes north of Lena Street, runs parallel to the Marta line, and apparently peters out. Angel led the group down this path, and PG said that this doesn’t go anywhere. Angel said that today it would. The path got narrow, leading to speculation that it was a toy railroad corridor. After going past a boarded up house, the threesome emerged on Joseph E. Boone Blvd., and crossed over the Marta line.
A trip through an apartment complex led to the next section of the beltline corridor. It seems as though there is a train line near there, which is in use by CSX. A long abandoned spur branches off this line at this point, and this is where the beltline goes. Past a certain point, it is solid kudzu. Angel  said we had gone five miles in two hours. The next mile would take an hour.
After hacking through the kudzu (mercifully turned gray by cold weather) for a while, the terrain got even rougher. (Sandy was wearing old shoes, with torn spots in the front, that served as kudzu catching hooks.) At one point, the crew had to crawl on hands and knees under some vines. After a while, there was a pathway(of sorts) behind yet another brick building, which appeared to be in use.
After a while, the last underpass of the day was in sight. This was a bridge over Donald Lee Hollowell Pkwy, formerly known as Bankhead Highway. There was some road work going on there, with men and heavy equipment making mud. The supervisor came down to see who the three visitors were. “You walked through that?”.