TRAY MOUNTAIN

Fire azalea and mountain laurel blooming along path to summit

TRAY MOUNTAIN

CHATTAHOOCHEE NATIONAL FOREST

Tray Mountain; Chattahoochee National Forest:  

Person to contact regarding insect collecting permits: Cindy Wentworth; Ecologist/Botanist; Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests; USDA-FS; P.O. Box 9; Blairsville, GA  30514; (706) 745-6928 [current as of May 2000]

Elevation: 4430 feet .  Location of summit: 34°47'99"N; 83°40'92"W

Collection date & weather conditions: This site was visited on May 24, 2000.  Collections were undertaken in the late afternoon.  It was visited again on May 26.  Collections were made from 11 AM - 3 PM. The skies were partly cloudy during the beginning of the collecting time, with plenty of time of direct sunlight, but they became more and more cloudy as the day went on.  Biting black flies were a nuisance, especially later in the day at the summit.

Description of summit:  To get to Tray Mountain, take SR-17/SR-75 to FS-283 (2 miles north of Unicoi Gap).  The road is marked, but it is not obvious unless you are really looking for it.  This quickly turns into a well maintained dirt road.  It almost immediately comes to a shallow creek crossing.  Follow this for about 4 miles until you reach FS-79 and take a sharp left here (east).  Follow FS-79 for about 2 miles to the parking area at Tray Gap.  I would suggest that a 4-wheel drive vehicle be used to get to this site, but the dirt road is well enough maintained that (if the road is in really good shape) a regular 2-wheel drive vehicle could make it to the parking area.  The trail to the summit follows the Appalachian Trail.  It is about a .9 mile hike taking about 1/2 hour to get to the summit.  The hike through the forest to the top is really beautiful.  The summit is rather small and has an outcropping of bare rock near the middle.  Shrubby vegetation is found in areas not covered by rock and short trees come to near the summit on either side, as you follow the trail.  I collected a wide variety of flies here, many sitting on vegetation at the summit, particularly on leaves of small blueberry bushes.  A variety was also collected on the bare rock area.  Excellent collecting here!

Rock outcrop at summit of Tray Mountain

Specimens collected: Here is a listing of the species that I collected and that Dodge notes as being collected at Tray Mountain.  Unfortunately, he does not list the species by site in his paper on "Sarcophagidae and other Diptera taken by trap and net on Georgia mountain summits in 1952", but he does note locality information in his paper on "A new sarcophagid genus with descriptions of fifteen new species (Diptera)".  

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