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

Total Falls

Total waterfalls as of 6/7/2015: 504
Total videos as of 6/7/2015: 180

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Freeman's Mill falls

12/31/2010 - Wanted to get over 120 falls so I set out today to find 3 more. One was at Little Mulberry Park, but I couldn't find that one. I did find the one at Freeman's Mill in Gwinnett County, and the ones at Settingdown Creek at Pooles Mill Covered Bridge Park in Forsyth County.

To my surprise there were actually at least 3 at Settingdown Creek, however only the upper one is accessible from the park. The others are fenced off by a 10 foot chain link fence, so apparently they are on private property. I was able to follow what must have been the remnants of the original road to the covered bridge, but had to take the pictures of the middle and lower falls through the fence, so they aren't as good as I'd like them to be...especially the lower one.

Falls at Freeman's Mill Park - the park is the site of an old mill, but the falls are actually on a side creek that joins the Alcovy River at the mill. The falls are on posted private property, but I was lucky enough to meet the owner and he gave me permission to go down to the falls to get some photos

GPMAPS does not show the creek for these falls.
 
  
These 2 photos are of the water coming over the old mill dam.



NoteThis falls can be seen by parking as far down the parking area as you can at Freeman's Mill Park, then walking down to the turnaround. On the street side there is a sidewalk out of the park and down the road to a bridge over the river. Cross the bridge and then look upstream and to the left for the creek. The falls is just visible cascading down the rocks. It will probably be hard to see when the trees are in leaf though, and the property is posted, so I don't suggest going down to the creek without getting permission.
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