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

Saturday, July 14, 2012

McClure Creek falls (5 falls)

7/14/2011 - drove the east side of Tray Mtn Rd, which comes out on Chimney Mtn Rd, northeast of Unicoi State Park.  The road was rough, mostly because it is graveled with a larger size stone than is usual on these Forest Service roads.  Also, in many places there were downright rocks on the road, that looked like they might have washed down from the mountainside in all the rain we've had lately.  The road was passable for my small stationwagon though.

Like many Forest Service roads, this one starts out following a creek.  It begins as a fairly level valley road, then climbs up the mountain and that is where I started hearing falls.  As I was checking out the first one, a family in a four-wheel drive truck came down the other way.  They said the road was not too bad for about another mile, and then it got a lot rougher and became pretty much a jeep road.

So I drove as far as I could, and found 4 more falls.  Then the road started to looked more chewed up, and even more importantly a lot muddier.  By this time the sky was getting dark from storm clouds moving in, and since I didn't want to get stuck up there in a downpour I turned around and came back out.  All in all I guess I got in about 2 1/2 miles or so.

The first falls is the bright white spot just above and to the right of center.  It was hard to get a good photo because of, as usual, all the rhododendrons above and around it.  The second falls is to the right of the tree just off-center and goes all the way to the bottom of the photos to the left of the same tree.

According to GMAPS these falls are on Mcclure Creek
 
GPS: 34.77362° -83.66876°
GPS: 34.77450° -83.66769°
 

These two falls are very close to each other.  Falls 4 is just upstream of falls 3, separated by a short section of shoals.
GPS: 34.77620° -83.66686°
GPS: 34.77634° -83.66694°


This falls is hard to see in the photo.  It's larger than it appears.  It's a plunge falls and goes pretty much right down the center of the photo, but the only part that is clearly falling water is the grey spot just above the rhododendron leaves, and in the lower center.
GPS:34.78269° -83.67331°


Directions and Information: from Helen, Ga
  • north on Hwy 17/75
  • east on Hwy 356 - through Unicoi State Park
  • north on Chimney Mtn Rd (starts out paved and turns to gravel)
  • at Y junction with another dirt road, bear left - this is Tray Mtn Rd
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