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, April 3, 2011

Hidden Falls (Gwinnett County) (2 falls)

4/3/2011 - went back to try to get more pictures, but they didn't turn out very well.  However, I did discover that there is another falls upstream of the rock shelf.  To get to it you have to bushwhack a short way to the creek from the stairs below the pool area.  It was very bright on the water, so the photo isn't as good as I'd like...evening is probably a better time to photograph this one.


1/8/2011 Searching on the 'net for waterfalls I found sites mentioning a subdivision in Gwinnett County called "Hidden Falls."  I couldn't find a specific website for this subdivision, but there are many by realtors that have homes listed there.  It's easy to get to, not too far from Buford, GA and the Mall of Georgia.

I didn't find any directions to the falls, but the map shows that the subdivision is not big and there's only one creek through it, so how hard could it be to find?  At least one listing even mentioned that the falls can be seen from the back deck of the home.  So I just went to see if I could find it.  A short way into the subdivision I passed a club house and tennis courts, so I pulled in to see if anyone was there.  And when I got out of the car, I could hear the falls!  So that turned out to be easy.


The falls is small, double falls - the main falls is the biggest, and flows over a quite large shelf of rock.  It's hard to see in the photo, but the shelf is open underneath and goes back in quite a ways.  The other falls is much smaller.
 
Directions and Information: from Buford, GA
  • south on Hamilton Mill Rd
  • right on Camp Branch Rd
  • right into Hidden Falls subdivision
  • right on Hidden Falls Rd
  • left into clubhouse parking
Note: as soon as you get out of your car you will hear the falls.  To get to the falls, take the stairs down the right side of the clubhouse, then continue down the stairs on the right.  At the bottom of the stairs there is a split trail, take the one that curves to the left - not the one across the wooden bridge.  The trail is short, and in pretty good shape until you get just above the creek where it just stops and there is a small drop-off to the creek.  This comes out between the upper and lower falls.  To see the entire falls, it's quite easy to cross the creek here, then work your way downstream, past the steps up that are on private property, to a small sand bar that gives a good view of both falls.
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2 comments:

jcbecker28 said...

Thanks for posting this. I used to live near there and visited these falls twice. They used to be called "Rock Houses of Gwinnett" when I found them around 2002. That term can no longer be found on the internet for some reason. There used to be a wheel there, but was deteriorated pretty good when I last visited there around 2004. I guess it is gone or you would have mentioned it.

July 19, 2014 at 10:29 AM
Doggone/GA said...

I've never seen a wheel there. It's in the middle of a subdivision now...so maybe the developer hauled it away.

July 19, 2014 at 11:02 AM

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