It’s been a long, weird, stressful summer for us, as for most people. But as is usually the way with such things, some good things came out of it, and one of those good things was that we finally spent some time exploring the very northeasternmost corner of Georgia (a replacement trip for our planned summer in Michigan), and we found out we love it there.
We stayed at Willow Valley RV Resort in Rabun Gap. I’ll do a separate post about the campground later, but it was, it turned out, a great base for checking out the little town of Clayton right down the road, three different state parks, Highlands, NC, and a few other things as well. We were surprised by how much there was so close by.
For assorted reasons, this was a much better pandemic travel experience than our June trip to the Smokies. The campground itself had more spacious sites, people in the towns we visited were mostly very good about wearing masks, and the area overall was just a lot less crowded. Even in non-pandemic times, I would suggest the area as an excellent, less congested alternative to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It’s also a lot closer for us, so another point in its favor.
We had five nights there, which was a good length of time. By the last couple of days, I was thinking of going to home early–because covid did mean lots and lots of hiking, so that it was like, “how about another fun hike to a waterfall, kids?!” pretty much every day–but Dave talked me out of it, and I was glad because the hike we did to Hemlock Falls on our last full day was one of my favorite hikes ever.
A note about weather and when to visit: the elevation in Rabun Gap is around 2000 feet, which is 1000 feet higher than Atlanta, so it was significantly cooler there than back home during our mid July trip. But it was still pretty hot and humid a lot of the time (mostly low to mid 80s), AND it rained a good bit pretty much every day. It’s been a pretty rainy summer all over the southeast, and we’re used to getting lots of rain in metro Atlanta….but then I looked it up and Rabun Gap actually gets 64 inches of rain a year–almost 15 inches more than Atlanta, and Atlanta is a very rainy city. We spent one day in Highlands, NC, and they get even MORE rain there (84 inches! I think most of it fell on the day we were there while we waited out a storm hunkered down in our van in a parking lot). So if you go in the summer, that’s what you’ll be dealing with. I’m sure that spring or especially fall is lovely there, though.
Here’s the rundown of what we did and where we ate:
Black Rock Mountain State Park
This is the highest elevation state park in Georgia (at 3640 feet), and the first of three state parks we visited during our trip. It was very close to our campground, up a very steep and winding road. There’s a campground in the park, but I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable taking much of anything bigger than a class B up there. But plenty of people do camp there with smaller motorhomes and trailers and occasionally bigger ones (there’s no specific length restriction, as far as I can tell). If you’re just driving a regular old car, the road is not particularly scary–it’s all grade, not steep drop offs.
We hiked the 2.2 mile Tennessee Rock Trail here. I had read that the best way to do the loop is counterclockwise, because that saves the steepest elevation gain and the best views for near the end of the hike. Only then I forgot and we did it the other way instead. Which was fine. It’s not long, but there is a nearly 600 foot gain in elevation, so it’s a decent workout. The older kids were much faster than we old people and Abe were, but we all made it fine.
If you go the way we did, you’ll start right away with a steep climb up to the summit and some great views:
Then steeply back down again for awhile, before you finish up with some more gentle up and down grades.
We also, on a separate visit, did the short trail around Black Rock Lake. The plan had been for Dave and Milo to kayak here while the rest of us walked and then meet back up after. But when we got there, the sign said no boating allowed, even though I’d read somewhere or other before about kayaking here. So we all walked around the lake instead. But then later we called the park for clarification, and they told us the sign was outdated and that non-motorized boats are, in fact, allowed. Oh well. It was a nice walk–just under a mile and mostly flat, so easy for young kids.
Tallulah Gorge State Park
State park #2 is just a few minutes south of Black Rock Mountain. Even though we were there on a weekday, Tallulah Gorge was very crowded–considerably more so than Black Rock Mountain had been. I mean, that’s probably because Black Rock Mountain lacks a 1000 foot deep gorge.
The big attraction here is the Hurricane Falls Trail, which takes you down into the gorge and across a terrifying suspension bridge. In regular times, you can also get a permit to hike all the way down to the gorge floor. But when we were there, they were limiting how many people were allowed on the Hurricane Falls Trail and not giving out floor permits at all, so we opted to just check out the North Rim Trail for views from above:
We planned to do the North and South Rim Trails, but it was really muggy that day, and no one was feeling it. But we did get to see the remains of one of the towers left over from when Karl Wallenda crossed the gorge on a tightrope:
And we made it to Inspiration Point Overlook, the highest point in the park:
Even though Abe was grumpy, he was wearing one of my favorite shirts, from Winter Water Factory. Facebook kept insisting I wanted to order something from them, and they were totally right (not sponsored!)
Hemlock Falls at Moccasin Creek State Park
THIRD state park! Moccasin Creek State Park itself is mostly about Lake Burton, which looked lovely, but which we didn’t get to do much with other than take a quick look at. But we headed over there to hike the Hemlock Falls trail, just outside the park boundary. And it turned out to be one of my favorite kid-friendly hikes ever.
The trail is just about a mile each way, with gentle grades, and there’s a big finish in the form of a lovely waterfall. We didn’t do it, but there were plenty of people in the water at the bottom of the falls, and that looked very safe.
But the hike leading up to the falls is a delight as well, with smaller waterfalls along the way as you walk through the woods and along a beautiful mountain stream.
At one point you cross a wooden bridge over an especially nice smaller waterfall (after we passed this and went uphill a bit we heard yelling from down below and looked down to see that a young kid had fallen in and needed to be fished out. He was fine! But keep an eye on kids who might get a little too excited about the waterfall here).
At the big waterfall, there was a fairly substantial crowd, but we were able to stake out a spot by ourselves to hang out and gawk at the scenery for awhile:
Warwoman Dell and Becky Branch Falls
We went to Warwoman Dell, part of the Chattahoochee Natural Forest, because it was very close to where we were staying, and it turned out to be a great little trail. Or two great little trails, really. From the Warwoman Dell parking area, you can walk down a trail past some old CCC ruins of a fish hatchery, cross the road (carefully!), and take the short hike (.3 miles, according my sources) to Becky Branch Falls. We were the only ones there when we went, a rare occurrence for an impressive and easy to reach waterfall:
The trail keeps going past that for a very long way (it’s part of the 115 mile long Bartram Trail), but as far as I know there are no other big payoffs in the short term (we did walk a little further because we were confused about the directions we had) and it got pretty steep and narrow pretty quickly past the waterfall).
And then right by the parking area there’s a little bridge, and if you cross over it you’ll get to these enchanting stone steps built into the hill:
It was hard to capture just how charming they are in the pictures, but it felt like we’d stumbled into a magical little garden in Ireland or something. Also the steps were a little scary since they were wet from recent rain. But not too bad. The sign at the bottom (not the one you can see–there’s another one!) says that they don’t know who built the steps: they might be from the days when the CCC was working here, or they might be older, from the 19th century when they were building a railroad here.
Speaking of the railroad, it was never finished, but the steps take you up to the railroad bed that was graded before the project was abandoned.
Highlands, NC
Highlands, NC is only about 35 minutes from Clayton, via a scenic mountain road:
Highlands really likes to talk about its elevation; it’s 4118 feet, which is easy to remember because they even manage to incorporate it into their logo and put it on all the signs. What this means for Highlands visitors, besides great views, is cooler temperatures than the surrounding areas. The average high in July, in fact, is only 78. It’s also just a very nice little town with a good bit to do, and we enjoyed our day trip there.
We didn’t have time to do everything in Highlands, of course, but we feel like we picked a couple of winners. First up we went to the botanical gardens at the Highlands Biological Station. They also have a nature center at the same site, but it’s closed right now because of covid. We weren’t able to find parking at the nature center entrance on Horse Cove Rd, but we didn’t have any trouble finding a spot at the 6th Street entrance. Entrance is free.
This botanical garden isn’t the carefully manicured flower beds and elaborate topiaries sort of botanical garden, but the rambly little trails through the woods with native plants everywhere sort. Which was perfect. It won’t take more than an hour or so to amble around in the woods here, but it’s very much worth it.
And then right across the street from the Biological Station, you’ll find Ravenel Park and the path up to both Sunset Rock and Sunrise Rock. Take the gravel road (technically you can drive up it, but it’s not recommended if you want to keep your axles) about .7 miles up the hill and then a short trail through the woods to this amazing view:
Abe wanted his brothers all to pose for pictures both with and without masks, hugging and not hugging, so we could use whichever one was most appropriate on a Christmas card this year. Fingers crossed for hugging, no masks!
There’s plenty of space up here to spread out, and it didn’t feel unsafe at all for Abe.
Another short walk through the woods from the main trail will take you to the smaller but still impressive Sunrise rock (it was the middle of the day when we were there, so the actual sunrise and sunset did not come into play):
Dry Falls
We left Highlands via the scenic (and extremely twisty) hwy 64, bound for Franklin, NC and came across Dry Falls in short order. Dry Falls is named for the fact that you can walk behind the falls without getting wet (well. Much). It’s super cool and–at least when we were there–super crowded. Not easy to keep your distance here, so we didn’t linger long. Nor did we get great pictures, but take my word for it that it’s an impressive waterfall–particularly after a lot of rain, I imagine, like when we saw it. We couldn’t hear each other talk when we were close to it. It’s a short walk from the parking lot to the falls, but there are a lot of steps to go down. There’s a small, cash-only parking fee here (in a drop box); I believe it was $3.
Wander North Georgia
Wander North Georgia being in downtown Clayton was how we settled on this area in the first place. I’d wanted to check out the store for awhile (I’ve been following their excellent instagram for years now), and it was a bit on the far side for a day trip, so a few days with the trailer just made good sense. Wander North Georgia sells a surprising variety of stuff: t-shirts and hats, outdoor gear, hiking shoes, books (not just travel and outdoor books, although that makes up a big portion of them), beer, and ice cream. So pretty much everything you need.
They’re requiring masks (and giving a 5% discount as a thank you!) and it’s a big space with plenty of room to spread out, so we did our first casual shopping in many months. I bought this book–Georgia Discovered–and you should, too, because it’s really pretty! (That’s an affiliate link. I wasn’t going to put an Amazon link, because I was going to tell you to buy it from Wander North Georgia, but they don’t have it for sale on the website. So if you can go to the store, buy it there!)
Eating and Drinking
We decided to treat this trip like a real vacation as much as we could, which meant a lot of take-out from local restaurants and not a lot of cooking. Clayton turned out to be a great place for this, and pretty much everywhere we tried was a hit. We had Mexican at Manrique’s. Pizza and wings from Fortify Pi:
Ridiculously affordable (and delicious) fried chicken from Sunday Diner, assorted stuff from Universal Joint:
And, finally, we picked up donuts at The Farm House:
And then, full of donuts and pizza and memories of waterfalls, we returned home, happy to know about such a great destination so close to home. We will certainly be back!
maybe you would like to pin this?
Those are some great waterfalls. I am addicted to falling water.