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

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Magic Mist Falls (Palmer Crk-Dawsonville)

7/4/2012 - A TrailDame (Thanks again Katie!) took my sister and I to this falls.  It's quite close to downtown Dawsonville, GA.  The hike in was on an old dirt road.  Not too bad at the beginning, but then it takes a right-angle turn to the left and is very washed out and rough, but passable with care.  Turned out there's another trail to this falls, but I forgot to take a GPS coordinate where it meets the old road, and unfortunately it's not easy to see - but it's where there's a place on the left where it's faintly obvious that people have walked into the woods.  I didn't hike this trail, but my sister did and she said it's a bit steep, but in better shape than the road after the turn.

Honestly, since this is essentially a valley waterfall...it turned out to be much bigger and more complex than I expected!  Well worth the hike in.

According to GMAPS this falls is on Palmer Creek

GPS: 34.41909° -84.09851°


Directions and Information: from Ga 400 highway
  • from GA 400 - take GA 53 west towards Dawsonville
  • bear right on Perimeter Rd
  • at the junction of Perimter Rd and Allen St - stop and park at old road across from Allen St
  • Hike approximately 1/4 mile to large turn-around area
  • (about 1/2 way down this part, there is a faint trail to the left that comes out at the creek and follows the falls downhill - this is an alternate route)
  • take old, eroded road to left
  • this old road comes out at the base of the falls
Note: I don't know if this property is private or public.  There is no mailbox at the start of the road, but just in case please be considerate and treat it as private property.  I would not suggest trying to drive on this old road.  It's not TOO bad up to the turnaround, but after the left turn is in very bad shape and is certainly no longer driveable.
Posted by

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)