Amicalola Falls

Georgia Travelog #11
Amicalola Falls State Park - Thursday, 10 Apr 2025, 4:30pm

All that driving we did today— 325 miles and still going— has gotten us to Amicalola Falls State Park in northern Georgia. It's quite a haul from Savannah. I wouldn't recommend it as a day trip! Fortunately we're not just here for the day; we'll visit other parks for the next few days. But Amicalola was the stake in the ground for this leg of our trip. It was the park we saw pictures of and said, "Wow, we have to visit that park, let's plan a trip around it!"



The trail starts from the park road at the bottom of the mountain and goes up, up, up. At first it's on a paved ramp. Later it's on nicely constructed wood and steel stairs.

Amicalola Falls is said to be the tallest waterfall east of the Rockies. I'm not sure which part of it is considered "the waterfall" for purposes of this comparison.... I can tell it's not the tallest single drop (that would be Taughannock Falls in New York, I believe) but does it also include the cascades lower down the stream canyon?



Well, regardless of how the official superlatives are determined, it's an amazing and beautiful waterfall. At about the halfway up point, just below the biggest plunge, the trail crosses the stream on a footbridge. That's said to be the best view... though as you can see from the two photos above the views from below the bridge are not exactly weak.



The trail continues up from the bridge to the top of the canyon. We stayed on the bridge a while, drinking in the views of the falls while we discussed whether or not to continue the ascent. Ultimately we decided to turn back at the bridge, though for good reasons. One, the staircase trail above this point veers off to the side and does not afford good views of the falls while climbing. Two, there's a road to the top so we can enjoy the top-of-the-falls view without the additional toil to get there.



I'm really pleased with how this hike turned out. Driving 325 miles and then hiking was a bit of a risk. How long would the drive take? Would we have enough time in the day left to hike afterwards? Indeed, we hit traffic in Macon and Atlanta that slowed us down. Would the weather be okay? It was cloudy most of the afternoon, and it even rained around 2pm as we were driving. But then the skies cleared and left us a beautiful late afternoon for hiking. In beauty I walk.

Update: Does it seem like something's missing in these pictures? You're right! Read my next blog to see what I forgot to bring this trip. 😱

View from Atop the Falls. What I Forgot this Trip.

Georgia Travelog #12
Amicalola Falls State Park - Thursday, 10 Apr 2025, 5:30pm

In my previous blog I remarked that hiking halfway up the canyon at Amicalola Falls was enough. We could tell that there weren't a lot of views to be gained by laboring up some 300+ more stairs, and we could get the view from the top by driving there. Indeed that's exactly what we did. We drove to the top!



And yeah, while the view from up here is nice, it's not let's-ascend-another-300-plus-stairs nice. 😅

What I Forgot This Trip

In the past I've joked that I forget one thing every trip. Of course that's not literally true, but it also seems not far from accurate. I often forget to pack something. A lot of times it turns out to be minor, something I can just as easily do without. Like forgetting to pack swim trunks when it turns out there was no hot tub at the hotel or I didn't have time to use it anyway. Other times what I forget is a doozy. On various trips I've forgotten to pack a clean shirt, clean socks, even underwear. 😱

What I forgot this trip is a doozy, though possibly not so... doozious?... as having no changes of underwear. I forgot my camera.

Now, you might be thinking, "LOL, how can you be like 'I fOrGoT mY cAmErA' when you've posted a picture in the same blog?" I mean, I'm pretty much never without a camera as there's one in my mobile phone. Actually there are four cameras in my mobile phone— and they've gotten really good thanks to onboard computational photography. But they lack some of the capabilities of my Fujifilm X-T3 interchangeable lens camera.

One of those critical capabilities is taking slow-exposure pictures with the help of screw-on filters to artistically blur the falling water at waterfalls. See for example this little explainer about waterfalls photography I wrote a year and a half ago.

In one respect forgetting my camera is even more of a doozy than forgetting a shirt, socks, or underwear. In each of those cases I simply bought what I forgot at a common local store. Buying a new camera is not something I can simply swing by Target or Best Buy for. I mean, yes, those stores literally sell cameras, but not the quality lenses and filters I carry in my camera bag on trips like this. And even if I could find such things at a specialty photography store, replacing what I left at home would cost several thousand dollars— not something to do on a whim. Or on an "Oops".

I'm still taking pictures this trip, of course. I'm just disappointed that I can't take pictures of the caliber and variety I'm accustomed to.