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

Microsoft Streets and Trips & Garmin GPS setup

I have been using the mapping program Microsoft Streets and Trips for years, especially since I started finding waterfalls...and now I've found out Microsoft is discontinuing it and and will no longer support it.  I have version 2013 and I recently purchased a newer, and slightly bigger laptop to use to track my waterfall trips as I'm driving.  I spent 3 hours trying to get the program to recognize my Garmin handheld GPS, so I decided to put down the steps it took...because I couldn't find them all in one place.  This will probably work for other similar GPS units, but I know it works for a Garmin GPSmap 60CSx, Microsoft Streets and Trips 2013 and either Windows XP or Windows 7

1.) Check your GPS documentation and set the GPS receiver to send in NMEA mode and 4800 baud
2.) Connect your GPS receiver to your PC with a USB cable, and turn it on
3.) Download the driver software for your GPS receiver
4.) Download Franson GpsGate Server (the version I have is 2.6, but that might change) from http://gpsgate.com/download (at the time of this posting, it is the first download on the page)
5.) Go through the settings for GPSgate and set the following:
     a.) Input tab: Input, set to "Garmin USB"
     b.) Click "Open" button
     c.) Click "Setup Wizard" and go through the steps to locate the port for your GPS unit
     d.) Output tab: Add Output, select "Virtual Com Port"
     e.) In popup window, select port where GPS is connected
     e.) Click "Add" button
     f.) Advanced tab: click "Start GpsGate after boot", if you want it to automatically start
Note: if GpsGate is successfully configured, it will turn green to indicate it is connected to the GPS receiver
6.) Open Microsoft Streets and Trips
7.) Click Tools:GPS:Configure GPS receiver
8.) In popup window, click "Scan" button - list of com ports should appear
9.) Click on com port for GPS receiver
10.) Click "Ok" button
11.) Click Tools:GPS: Start GPS Tracking
Note: you can also click Tools:GPS task pane and do the Configure and Start tracking from there
12.) a red dot inside a red circle should appear on the map if you have configured everything correctly

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