Appalachian Trail in Georgia – There are seventy some odd miles of the AT in Georgia, but you don’t have to do all of it in one hiking trip. You can hike a mile or two during a fun day hike, or go for a longer weekend trip where you can knock out anywhere from a five to twenty miles. There are several roads that intersect the trail so there are many sections where you can hike from road to road in a day or a weekend.

Suwanee Greenway – This trail covers about five miles if you hike it end to end, but more if you explore any of the side trails. It is well maintained with most of it paved and offers access to fun places like the Suwanee Town Center Park. This trail is popular with families on bikes, walkers, joggers, and of course hikers.
suwanee.com/pdfs/suwaneecreekgreenway.pdf

Benton MacKaye Trail – This trail winds through one of the most beautiful areas of North Georgia. You’ll enjoy the drive to this trail as much as the trail itself. This trail is cared for by a highly dedicated association that keeps it in top condition.
bmta.org/HikerResources.htm

Silver Comet Trail – With over 60 miles of trail you can really work your legs on this one. This is an excellent trail for your bike, and a perfect place to train for a big hike. This trail was once a railroad and now winds through three Georgia counties.
silvercometga.com

Savannah – If you’re visiting Savannah you must see Skidaway Island State Park, and while you’re there you can hike the trails. Just remember that if you are there in the summer the bugs are biting and the humidity and heat are killer. Drink lots of water, use bug repellant, and consider hiking in the morning.

Swinging in Enota

There was a time when I would never consider a campground with other people a fun thing.  I have always loved to camp, but preferred to camp away from the crowds.  Then I had a son, a few nephews, and a godson and camping in places fun for kids became a good idea.  Last fall I found Enota campground in North Georgia, and after camping in a few other campgrounds, realized that Enota is the best family campground in the North Georgia Mountains.

Enota has playgrounds, a farm where kids can milk cows and feed chickens, a stocked trout pond, creeks and waterfalls, a rustic restaurants for campers, and great spots for camping.  There’s also a bath house where you can take a shower.  Enota has everything to make your camping trip fun and relaxing.

Enota is close to Brasstown Bald, Helen, and is in the middle of the most beautiful area in North Georgia.  If you have a family they’ll love camping in Enota.

Odie Overlook on the White Candle Trail section

Since 1975, volunteers of all ages have labored to build and maintain the Pine Mountain Trail, a 23-mile footpath. This main trail and connecting loops, that crosses and follows the beautiful Pine Mountain ridge in west central Georgia, is inside the Franklin Delano Roosevelt State Park and near Callaway Gardens. Quiet woods, sparkling streams, misty waterfalls, rock outcroppings, varied forest, scenic overlooks, deer and turkey await your discovery. Just follow the blazes (6″ by 2 ½” rectangles painted on trees). Two-foot-high rock cairns and mileage markers assist the hiker. Wooden location and mileage signs have been placed at each road crossing, trail head, junction, campsite, and at all named parking lots and trailheads. The Pine Mountain Trail offers clear crisp views of distant ridges in winter, with occasional snowfall. In the summer there are lush green ferns and lowland flowers. Wild flowers are abundant and in spring you will find flowering dogwood, native azalea, mountain laurel and rhododendron. Fall brings bright and beautiful leaves of hickory, oak, dogwood and maple, which change from day to day.

Much of the land that the Pine Mountain Trail crosses once belonged to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His farm was near the site of WJSP-TV. FDR often visited Dowdell Knob and the area of the Wolfden and Cascade Falls as well as the fish hatchery ponds built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930’s. On April 12, 1945, Roosevelt died at the Little White House at Warm Springs, less than a mile from the trail and Cascade Falls. On April 12, 2007, the PMTA completed a wooden trailhead shelter, sign-in point and trail parking lot at Dowdell Knob which, at 1,395 feet, is the highest point on the trail. On the same day, the Georgia DNR dedicated a new life size statue of FDR depicting him sitting on a car seat overlooking Pine Mountain Valley

The Pine Mountain Trail Association, Inc. (PMTA) was organized to design and build the best trail system possible. D. Neal Wickham was the driving force to establish the PMT and spent countless hours planning, scouting and preparing the land prior to construction. Members and volunteers started working on a weekly schedule, seeking the best route, selecting points of interest and building a safe and functional trail. Until new trails could be built, old existing horse trails and Boy Scout trails were used as temporary connecting paths. Miles of trail were obtained in this way but it took years of rerouting and work to get the final route.

The result: a trail designed for maximum enjoyment with many points of interest and few steep, tiring grades. After working in winter’s freezing temperatures and summer’s sweltering heat, a 23-mile, blue-blazed trail was opened from the FDR park entrance (near the Country Store at US 27 and Georgia 190) past Dowdell Knob and on to the WJSP-TV tower near Warm Springs. Less than two miles remain of the old trail. The Pine Mountain Trail Association appreciates the cooperation and the continuing efforts of the management and staff of FDR State Park.

Registries at the eastern end of the trail, Dowdell Knob Trailhead and near the FDR Park office have been signed by tens of thousands of hikers from every state and many foreign countries. It is estimated that 60,000 hikers use the trail each year and over 1 million hikers had hiked all or part of the trail by 1995. The trail is for foot travel only. Horses and wheeled vehicles are strictly forbidden.
In addition to the 23-mile main trail there are seven loops formed by connecting trails. In 2006, Pine Mountain Trail Association volunteers started and completed the 2.4 mile White Candle Trail section, which combined with the Beaver Pond Trail forms the newest loop, the 3.4 mile East End Loop.  Near GA 190, the White Candle Trail passes through a section of old long leaf pines that FDR had planted in 1930. A historical marker nearby tells about the area.
Mountain Creek Nature Trail Loop (3.2 miles)
Overlook Loop (3.4 miles)
Dowdell Knob Loop (4.3 miles)
Wolfden Loop (6.7 miles)
Long Leaf Loop (6.9 miles)
Big Poplar Loop (7.8 miles)
East End Loop (3.4 miles)

Fourteen designated back-country/backpacking campsites are at various places a short distance off the trails. FDR State Park does not charge PMTA members who present their membership card for the required permits to backcountry camp on the trail.

The Pine Mountain Trail is within FDR State Park. FDR, like all state parks requires a daily use fee for parking anywhere within the park. Annual Georgia Park Passes are good at all state parks such as FDR. Contact the FDR park office for all fee/permit rates and other information.
http://www.gastateparks.org/info/fdr/

Thanks to Jim Hall, the Vice President of the Pine Mountain Trail Association, for this review of the Pine Mountain Trail.  As a kid I hiked this trail several times with the Boy Scouts and have fond memories of the area.  I’ll be taking my little boys there soon.

After my days at Young Harris College I would return often to repel from and climb the cliffs.  At the bottom of a hundred foot rock wall was a deep pool of water from the waterfall that rushed through the middle of the cliffs.  We would repel at top speed from the cliff and splash down into the pool.  Unfortunately other climbers were not very respectful of the cliffs and destroyed much of the natural vegetation so the Park Service had to put an end to ropes on the cliffs.

In recent years the crowds have found Raven Cliffs and the trail had to painfully adapt.  I hiked the trail a couple of Octobers ago – during peak leaf season – and there were so many people that I could see hikers in front of me and behind me.  It felt a little like Disney Land.  To save the environment there is now a fee parking area, bathrooms at the parking lot, and better maintained trails.  But don’t let the modern amenities turn you off because this is still a beautiful trail with a magnificent ending.  It’s also the perfect North Georgia hike for beginners and those that want to experience nature, but don’t have the physical ability to hike a strenuous trail.  A fun weekend includes a couple of nights in Helen and hike on the Raven Cliffs Trail.

Trail Info:
Raven Cliffs Trail sits in the 9000 acre Raven Cliffs Wilderness and follows Dodd Creek for 2.5 miles to giant cliffs split by a rushing waterfall.  To get to Raven Cliffs go north through Helen, Georgia on GA 75 for a mile and a half past the Chattahoochee River.  Just after the flea market turn left onto Alt. 75 South and drive for two miles until you get to the Richard B. Russell Scenic Highway (the most beautiful road in Georgia).  Travel for three miles and turn left into the Raven Cliffs parking area.  Bring some dollars bills to pay for the parking. I think its $2.00 to park.
The trail follows Dodd Creek and offers some nice waterfalls the first mile and a half.  After that it rises slowly until you reach the cliffs.  Bring your camera, water, and a snack.  I like to bring my lunch and eat it on the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs.