Directly across from the campground is a hiking trail, Hemlock Falls Trail. It is listed as 1.9 mile out and back trail. It goes through the woods and at the end is a waterfall. Very nice hike! While we were out walking, Becky & Charles called and we arrived at the campground as they were arriving.
We woke up to a colder day, about 52°. We ate breakfast and decided to go for a hike straight from the campground. Rather than going over the bridge to the south rim trail, we went under the road to the right. Does paved road follow the river for a ways and then it veered off right into the woods. It was a good path very level and easy after what we had been doing. We passed a few other people on this trail. At one point we could see large rocks down in the water so we found a small trail and headed down. The water was really rushing here it was all the rocks around it was quite pretty. We hiked a total of about 3 miles. We hung out at the campsite for a bit, ate lunch, and then headed out of the campground to Moccasin Creek Campground. After setting up camp, we headed to Helen, Georgia where we walked around and ate a German dinner on the square.
We drove about 20 minutes away to the Chatta Hoochie National forest where we had to pay five dollars to enter. We headed to the trail head for a 2.3 round-trip hike. This hike follows the stream and they were several crossings back-and-forth over the stream, sometimes a log, sometimes a bridge, sometimes rocks. The bottom part of this hike was easy but once you get to the halfway point it seems to go up much steeper. About halfway is Panther Falls, A wide section of rocks with lots of water rushing over. The path continues until you get to Angel Falls which is a taller formation of rocks and a narrower stream of water coming down. There were several other people out on this trail. From here we drove over to RabunLake. This was a beautiful lake and there were lots of large homes surrounding it. I’m sure they were in the million dollar range if not more. We parked on a narrow dirt road at the Minnehaha trail head. This was a short hike, but it also was very steep. This was another gorgeous waterfall. From here we headed into the town of Clayton and found The Currahee brewery. We had a flight of beers and we also walk down to a food truck. We got roasted corn with some different seasonings on it, some homemade kettle chips, and pretzel bites beer cheese. All of these were absolutely delicious. We walked around Clayton which is a quaint little town, obviously very touristy. We headed back to the campsite and sit around for a while when I decided I would walk down to the bottom of the gorge. There are signs warning for people not to go down if they have health problems as it’s a very steep staircase down with 620 steps. My knees were telling me on the way down I shouldn’t be doing this and on the way up it was my heart telling me I shouldn’t be doing this. But I did it, and I was glad. This is a really pretty gorge that just doesn’t seem to fit in this part of the country. For dinner we had potato crusted cod and roasted asparagus and went to bed very tired and very sore.
We attempted to leave the campsite early so that we could get out and hike before the rain came. We drove over to the interpretive center where the trail head was for the north and south rim trail. This trail is above the gorge so you could have views of the water below. There are 10 overlooks but because it was foggy we weren’t able to view the water at every spot. It’s an easy hike around and infect the beginning of the trail is probably the best trail we’ve ever seen. It’s made of recycled tires and very well marked. Even when the recycle tire portion ran out, the path was still very nice. The gorge is beautiful with water pouring over chiseled dark rocks. We did not go down any of the steps as signs cautioned it may get very slippery when wet along with the fact that dogs are not allowed on the bottom deck. Towards the end of the walk, some rain did come but we made it to the truck in time. We sat around the campsite and when it looked like there was a break in the weather we were going to hike to the beach area. We didn’t even get out of the campsite before the rain came so it was back to the camper. So once again we waited for a break and when it came we headed out for another hike. This time we got a little bit further and made it to the dumpster and once again the skies opened up so back to the trailer. It was a good thing we got in our long hike in the morning. In between our hiking attempts, I painted while Scotty and Benji watched the weekend campers drive into the campsite. For dinner we had fajitas and consider another good day in our camper.
