By Larry Felton Johnson

Yesterday afternoon I walked along the Chattahoochee RiverLands trail adjacent to Discovery Park in Mableton. I didn’t cover the entire distance, but I made a video of the walk from the entrance at the Discovery Park trail, to the overlook where you can get a close look at the river.

Excuse the heavy breathing. I recorded the footage on a phone after having already walked a considerable distance, and I won’t prioritize editing out extraneous noise. After you’ve watched the video, be sure to read the background below.

The Cobb County Department of Transportation, Cobb PARKS, and the Trust for Public Land hosted the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the first phase of Chattahoochee RiverLands on December 2, 2024.

The river trail highlighted during the ceremony is the first of a network of trails and destinations connecting 19 metro Atlanta cities and seven counties. It stretches from Buford Dam on the north to Chattahoochee Bend State Park in Coweta County on the southern end.

This section of trail is behind Discovery Park at the River Line in Mableton and will be maintained by Cobb PARKS.

According to the county news release about the ribbon-cutting:

The project was led by the Cobb County Department of Transportation, with pivotal support from Commissioner Monique Sheffield, who secured $1 million in SPLOST funds to kickstart the initiative. Trust for Public Land contributed an additional $470,000 to help bring the project to completion. Chairwoman Lisa Cupid and the Mableton Improvement Coalition have also been instrumental advocates, rallying community support throughout the process.

About the Chattahoochee RiverLands

The Chattahoochee RiverLands is a planned 100-mile-long network of parks and trails running from Buford Dam on the north to the Chattahoochee Bend State Park in Coweta County on the southern end.

The project vision page on the Chattahoochee RiverLands website describes the project as follows:

“The Chattahoochee RiverLands will reunite the River with the Metro Atlanta Region, and link suburban, urban, and rural communities into a continuous 100-mile public realm. 

“More than a trail, the RiverLands is a linear network of Greenways, Blueways, parks, and the destinations they create, that will bring people to the water’s edge, promote stewardship and conservation of the river, and reveal the subtle magic of the Chattahoochee to all.”