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, December 24, 2012

Shirley Miller Wildflower Trail (3 falls)

The main part of the trail is a boardwalk, but we couldn't do the whole loop because part of it had been taken out by a big downed tree. That wasn't a real hardship though as the 2 parts of the loop are pretty close together anyway, and most of the walk was intact, it was just one short section that was uncrossable. Today the boards were very slippery due to all the rain in the last day or two, so we had to go carefully.

The first falls is about half-way around the boardwalk that goes closest to the mountain, the other two are past the end of the boardwalk and a short hike up a trail. The trail wasn't too bad overall, but there was one short section that has washed out and is at a steep angle - and was very slippery due to the rain.

The last 2 falls are very close together, and it was hard to get a good picture of the upper falls, because it is split by a big rock and was so wide it was hard to get it all in one picture. I did the best I could, but the emerging leaves do hide some of it. When you are there you can get a much "cleaner" view of it by getting a lot closer. These 2 falls are on Pocket Branch - though with all the rain we've had it was more of a creek than a branch!

According to GMAPS the creek for falls 1 is not shown, but the other 2 are on Pocket Branch

GPS: parking - 34°42'46"N 85°22'47"W
falls #1 - 34°42'37"N 85°22'41"W
falls 2 & 3 - 34°42'34"N 85°22'33"W



Directions and Information: from Lafayette, GA
  • west on hwy 193
  • left on Hog Jowl Rd
  • left on Pocket Rd to parking at end
Note: there is a creek crossing that has to be forded just before the parking area, but even with all the rain we've had I crossed it with no trouble in my little station wagon. From the parking area you will see a gated forest road - which leads to the top of the falls at the head of the valley. The wildflower trail is past this and crosses the creek on a bridge and continues as a boardwalk. This is a protected area, so stay on the boardwalk until you get to the end...where steps lead down to the trail where it is OK to be off the boardwalk. The falls are upstream, a short hike
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