Amicolola Falls, Georgia

Sylvester · Post by **Sylvester** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 7:35 am

Heading for the hills today, the north Georgia hills that is. Me and the boys are going to Amicalola Falls, a very nice place I have been to but never camped at. I wanted a place that had a river in it, in the cool mountains, and not a bunch of rednecks partying until dawn (That was last year at another site. ). Ironically, this is the very location we were attempting to go to last Fourth of July. We made it 10 miles before I blew a front tire on Samantha, and my spare was flat. A nice tow home prevented us from making the trip. So today we are going on our first camping trip of the year. This is hopefully what I will see later today:

And here is the link. No worries mates, I will take the camera.

http://gastateparks.org/net/go/parks.as ... &s=0.0.1.5

zblair · Post by **zblair** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 8:40 am

BEAUTIFUL! Good luck with your camping trip Sly, I'll be happy to see your photos when you get back and post em.

turk · Post by **turk** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 10:04 pm

We were talking about Georgia today. I have to make it down there at some point. I've never been to the mountains. We have relatives and friends in S. Carolina, Georgia, and S. Florida, so a road trip is in the offing. The best of luck to you Sly on your trip.

chitwnvw · Post by **chitwnvw** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 10:16 pm

turk wrote: ... so a road trip is in the offing. The best of luck to you Sly on your trip.

When? I'd love to head out that way. We could crash Sylvester's pad and reek havoc.

turk · Post by **turk** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 10:21 pm

Man, I can't write checks my body can't cash. Sometime soon. We'll let you know of course. The Beautiful South is more than a destination. We could pencil in Xenia, Ohio too perhaps. This will take some planning. We have top notch diggings in those states though, especially S. Florida. Ahh, the life, if we can swing it.

chitwnvw · Post by **chitwnvw** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 10:25 pm

turk wrote:Man, I can't write checks my body can't cash. Sometime soon. We'll let you know of course. The Beautiful South is more than a destination. We could pencil in Xenia, Ohio too perhaps. This will take some planning. We have top notch diggings in those states though, especially S. Florida. Ahh, the life, if we can swing it.

Well keep in touch. Xenia would be nice. If we can set it up we might get decent turnout.

zblair · Post by **zblair** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 10:39 pm

turk wrote:We were talking about Georgia today. I have to make it down there at some point. I've never been to the mountains. We have relatives and friends in S. Carolina, Georgia, and S. Florida, so a road trip is in the offing. The best of luck to you Sly on your trip.

You all ought to drive down the Blue Ridge Pkwy. It won't go as far as FL, but you can go through a bunch of states and it's beautiful.

Sylvester · Post by **Sylvester** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:48 am

Well, we made it there and back! We had a blast, it was cool in the evening since it rained Saturday, but not while we were there. The campground is small but it was only half full. We even got to have a fire, unlike last year when Georgia was so dry. Here we are at the campground, this is a far cry from the Redneck Jamboree campground we went to last year:

We set up camp and headed for the falls. You can see quite a ways out. The grade up to the campground was sometimes 26 degrees (down shift into first? Indeed!), and here you can see why:

I did not know they had stairs to the bottom of the falls, around 600 of them, not including the paths. We struck out for the visitor center at the bottom and front of the park (Where BTW, the Appalachian Trail begins, it has a stone gateway marking the entrance. All 2100 miles of it, whew).

It is a long way down, you can't see the bottom when you start. At the bottom of the 450 stairs is the falls and a bridge across. It is pretty high up there:

Here I am on the bridge, my son does not say when he is going to hit the button on the camera:

We then set out for the visitors center via trails. I can tell I have not been hiking for awhile, especially after all those stairs. We found this frog on the trial, I knew I should have taken more pictures in the woods, this one turned out very nice, notice the flora and fauna:

We ate smores, Dinty Moore Beef stew, beans, fried eggs and bacon. We listened to jazz on the radio at night and played chess by the fire. My legs are still sore from climbing back up those stairs. But we had a great time. I would give Amicolola Falls State Park an 8, only because I wish we could camp nearer to the stream. Next on the camping agenda is Stone Mountain Park for the 4th. Two days with the entire family. The full camp setup, tent, lights, everything. Should be fun.

hambone · Post by **hambone** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:16 am

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing. (especially the one of scowly-you, I always wondered what you looked like.)
Any more pics of the mountains etc?

Sylvester · Post by **Sylvester** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:46 am

hambone wrote:Beautiful! Thank you for sharing. (especially the one of scowly-you, I always wondered what you looked like.)
Any more pics of the mountains etc?

Not many, where we were you had to walk a ways to get to where you could see out. This is from their website, the campground is behind their lodge a ways.

We had to check in at the lodge, boy it was very nice. There was a wedding going on there at the time. It is a very beautiful place with rooms, I think they start at $95 a night.

This was at the bottom of the falls looking up, pretty dense in there.

I suppose I was scowling (I always look that way), my son didn't take the picture when I thought he should. So I move towards him and bam. Mind you, this is after coming down those stairs, and knowing I have to go back up them eventually. I almost asked a park ranger at the visitor station is they could drive us back, but didn't want to look like a wimp in front of the lad.

Sylvester · Post by **Sylvester** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:01 am

chitwnvw wrote:
turk wrote: ... so a road trip is in the offing. The best of luck to you Sly on your trip.
When? I'd love to head out that way. We could crash Sylvester's pad and reek havoc.

All visitors welcome. I doubt I qualify for the AIRS list now since we have no extra parking where I live now. However, there are plenty of places to camp at around here, like Stone Mountain where I am going for the 4th. I will give a report on it when I get back from there.

turk · Post by **turk** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:16 am

Really great pictures Sly. I wondered what it was like there. The last one is interesting because it looks like an autumn shot. Are the trees still "leaving" out so the colors are varied? Dang it's purty around there. I would bet there's a whole lot of wildlife around there. Bears? Remember the guy who killed the 350 pound bear last year? That was in Georgia somewhere.

Sylvester · Post by **Sylvester** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:06 am

turk wrote:Really great pictures Sly. I wondered what it was like there. The last one is interesting because it looks like an autumn shot. Are the trees still "leaving" out so the colors are varied? Dang it's purty around there. I would bet there's a whole lot of wildlife around there. Bears? Remember the guy who killed the 350 pound bear last year? That was in Georgia somewhere.

Thanks Turk. They warned us that the raccoons were really bad, and all food should be in your vehicle when you weren't there and at night. Did not see any bears, but they are up there. I plan on going up in the autumn for the leaf change and be a "leefer", that would be great to see up close instead of just passing through. I remember the bear story, scared the wife too.

spiffy · Post by **spiffy** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:58 am

Beautiful!! And those are the type of forests that are "noisy", yes? I miss the midwest forests that could keep ya up at night...or help you fall asleep with all the racket from the critters.

zblair · Post by **zblair** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:19 am

Love the photos Sly. I just had something weird happen!

When I looked at your photo. I saw a flashback with you in three different uniforms. One was recent (like Desert Storm camo) and two sepia, it was so quick I couldn't tell if the first was union or rebels, but it looked civil war. The second was a uniform I had not seen. There looked like either some type of belt crossed in front of your chest and a part of it had bullets in it. Like shotgun shells actually. Is there a uniform past like that? Spanish civil war?

When I *see* stuff in sepia I have learned that this is my mind's way of letting me know it's past history. At least 100 years but usually ends up older than that.

Happens sometimes.

Itinerant Air-Cooled

Itinerant Air-Cooled

Amicolola Falls, Georgia

Amicolola Falls, Georgia