Garrett “Buck” Pendergrass covers the outdoors for Bavarian Brainrot — which, in Helen, means the Chattahoochee River, Anna Ruby Falls, the trail network around Unicoi State Park, and the vast and often unaccountable population of geese, raccoons, white-tailed deer, and unsupervised black bears that share Main Street with the tourists.
A native of Robertstown and a 1998 graduate of North Georgia College’s Wildlife Biology program, Buck spent sixteen years at Georgia Outdoor News before crossing the river, professionally speaking, to file for a publication that takes the rocks, the fish, and the Tuesday-afternoon goose dispute on Yonah Drive as seriously as he does.
He files most of his copy from a folding chair in approximately forty inches of moving water, a fact reflected in the occasional spelling. He maintains that the Chattahoochee is, on balance, slightly faster than people think, and that this is the most important fact about Helen.
