My North Georgia (mostly) Waterfalls Project: Darnell Falls (5 falls)

What this is all about

I like to hike, and I belong to a womens hiking group called "TrailDames" - one of our hikes took us to a waterfall just over the border in South Carolina. This got me interested in finding waterfalls nearby and earlier this year I found a website with directions and photos of waterfalls in North Georgia at (see links for TrailDames & North Georgia Waterfalls below)

I now also belong to another womens hiking group called Off the Grid. Both OTG and Traildames are on Meetup.

Mr. Anthony's site has lovely photos of well over 100 waterfalls in North Georgia and I got interested in seeing them. As the weather got hotter through the summer I concentrated on shorter hikes to falls, and falls that were visible from the road. Then, as it started to get cooler again, I started doing longer hikes. It turned out to be far more fun than I expected it to be, and to my surprise - when I added them up - I had been to over 100 myself!

So I decided to make a record of them and of what it's like to visit them, in case anyone else is interested in seeing them too. I will be adding photos and directions, trail conditions, etc. in the future. As I "redo" falls I will update the page that already exists for them, instead of creating a new page every time. Keeping with the format of this blog site, I will put new information at the top of each existing page.

I won't be putting road mileages on the directions, I strongly urge you to compare my directions to a good map so you can see the distances for yourself. I'm not very good at guessing distances, so if I can find a trail length I will use that. If I'm guessing, I'll put a question mark so you'll know!

My apologies for the "watermarks" on the photos, but I have had...and know other people who have had...photos stolen off the net. The watermarks are to ensure that they can't be reused without being identified as mine.

I got a good GPS unit and I'll slowly be putting GPS coordinates for the falls, when I can. If I can get close to the falls the GPS will be for the falls. Otherwise, it will be for where you can see them most easily.

Nov 2012: I got a new PC and now that I can actually get things done (!) I'm going to rearrange the way the falls are listed. I'm going to list them separately, instead of grouping them by the day I saw them. The only ones I'll group are the ones that are on the same creek, or very close - like on the same road.

I've completed rearranging the posts. Hopefully this will help make the falls easier to find. I also found my count was WAY off, so I've updated the total too.

Jan 2013 - I just got a video camera, so I'll be adding short videos of the falls as I am able to get back to them. They might be a bit shakey at first, but hopefully I'll get better as I get used to using it!

Jan 2014 - I almost forgot about posting this! I had been in contact with Sharon Collins, the host of GPB's "Georgia Outdoors"...offering to take her around my 18 Waterfalls tour. She was not able to make it, but I did take her cameraman Shane Keating on the tour. I was hoping they'd do a show about the tour, but that didn't happen. However, some of the shots did show up in the episode "Mountain Magic"...so I've added a link to that episode.

Aug 2015 - I've created a Google map of the waterfalls I either have been to, or know about as publicly accessable, check it out at: https://goo.gl/maps/79Lyb

Got some additional news. The episode of Georgia Outdoors mentioned above, that has some of the shots taken by the cameraman on my 18 Wateralls tour...won a 2015 Southeastern Emmy for "Magazine Program" http://www.gpb.org/emmys

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Darnell Falls (5 falls)

8/27/2016 - another member of Off the Grid and I went to do the Cullasaja River gorge tour and took in this falls on the way. She took a picture of an engraved rock at Darnell Falls that I don't remember seeing before. At least, I remember the rock, but I don't recall seeing the engraving!

3/14/2013 - got my sister to take me back to get Darnell Falls and the falls above it. She's got an SUV and I hoped we'd get higher than I did before, but the road got steeper and turned away from the creek...so we turned around and went back. I did get some videos...but one of the falls just could not be photographed or taped. If you stand and look at it, you can duck and dodge and weave and see that it's pretty sizable, but with all the rhododendron in the way it just looks like white spots in the green

5/14/2011 - went back up above Clayton to redo some falls and try to find new ones too. Did Darnell Falls, and then drove up above the falls and got 4 new ones! The ones labeled 3,4,5 are all at the same spot. The GPS point is actually for the upper falls.

I didn't go as far up the FS road as I could have, it got rougher and rain started and I didn't feel like dealing with a steep, rough road in the rain.

According to GMAPS these are all on Darnell Creek

3/15/2013 - took advantage of the beautiful weather, and all the rain we've had lately, to take a day off and go back to Darnell Falls to get videos. Talked my sister into driving me up in her SUV, because the last time Ihad been there I had trouble getting up the Forest Service Road above the falls. The road is pretty scary, steep and bumpy, but we did get further in than I could in my car.

10/24/2010 Did multiple falls on one day in NE GA

Darnell Falls is on a short side road off a Forest Service road near Rabun Gap. Mr. Anthony says it's on private property, but another site I found says it's on Forest Service land and that's how it appears. At least, there were no private property signs that I could see. I didn't drive down the short road to the falls, though from the tracks I saw it's probably possible. To get the best view of the falls, you need to climb up a huge rock that is closest to the falls.

GPS: 34°57'32"N 83°21'22"W

This falls is just above Darnell Falls. When you are down at the bottom of Darnell Falls you can just see a small piece of this one at the top.
GPS: 34°57'34"N 83°21'22"W (upper)

There is a falls between #2 and #4, but it was impossible to get a good photo or video of it. You can move around, duck down, and see it's pretty good size, it just was not in a good place to photograph it.

This is the 4th falls on Darnell Creek. There's a short road to a camping spot and the best place to see this falls is a short way up the main Forest Service road from the junction with the camp spot road.