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

Monday, June 17, 2013

Upper Tallulah River (9 falls)

6/15/2013 - beautiful day today, warm sun, cool breeze!  Went up to the Upper Tallulah River to get videos of the waterfalls.  None of the falls on this part of the river are big, but they are pretty and since they are strung out about a mile of the river, they're easy to view.

 5/7/2011 - my sister and I did the Upper Tallulah River again so I could get new photos and GPS points.  Somehow or other I missed a couple of falls, so I guess I'll have to go back again!  I'm not completely sure I now have the photos in the correct order. 

The 1st side falls is just opposite the best place along the road to view the first falls.  The 1st falls has a hole bored completely, or almost completely through it.  I hadn't noticed that before.  Check the top center of the big rock between the center and far right sections of the falls.

The 2nd side falls is visible across the river just west of the 4th bridge.  I found out about it from a website that says it's at the 3rd bridge, but it's actually the 4th.  It's supposed to be quite a big falls, and it's supposed to be possible to climb up to see it from the east end of the bridge and it does look like it might be possible - but it looks like you'd have to get down and crawl under some rhododendron and I just didn't have time to try it.

2/6/2011 - headed back up to the Clayton, GA area to try to find another falls.  Didn't find the one I was looking for, but since it was supposed to be somewhere up the Upper Tallulah River I took pictures of some small falls in the river.  Starting at the 1 mile point on FS 70, and for the next 2 miles, the river is just one spectacular sight after another.  There are shoals, falls, and rapids almost every inch of the way.  There are boulders in the river that range from big to enormous.  It's quite a sight!

The pictures are in the order I saw them as I drove upriver.














Directions and Information: from Clayton, Ga
  • west on US 76
  • right on Persimmon Rd
  • Left on Tallulah River Rd/FS 70
Note: the most scenic part of the river starts at the first bridge and goes a little past the 4th bridge - a little over 2 miles.  The first bridge actually crosses the Coleman River, the rest cross the Tallulah River.
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