There, we found a picturesque stone archway that served as the gateway to the trails. We found that just beyond the arch, the trail to the actual beginning of the improved Appalachian Trail begins. Amicalola State Park is, apparently, the southernmost access point to the Trail, with a short, 8.5 mile hike to Springer Mountain, Georgia, which is where the actual Appalachian Trail begins. You can read the explanatory information about the Appalachian Trail here.

We wanted to do a nice hike today, but when we got out our pencils, paper and calculator, we discovered that it was unlikely that we could get to Mt. Katahdin, Maine, and back before dark. That's when we settled on the top of Amicalola Falls. To record the beginning of our hike to the falls, we switched off, with me taking a picture of Fred at the trailhead and him taking a picture of me.

Hiking to the top of Amicalola Falls

Starting Out to Amicalola Falls

As I often do with hikes, I wanted to record our starting out on the hike to the top of the falls, and you can get a good idea of what the trail was like.

The trail was really pleasant for the first fifteen minutes or so, as we walked on a relatively slow upward slope through the leaf‑padded forest. There were a couple of wooden bridges on the way, and plenty to look at, but I discovered that I was overdressed for the heat of the noontime sun. The shady forest was a godsend, but it was still quite hot, and I took off my shirt for a while to cool off when we got to the top.

Along the way, Fred took some really nice pictures of the forest scenery, and you should click on the thumbnails below to have a look at them:

Lunch at the Amicalola Falls Lodge

It was about one o'clock, so we thought that we would walk up the short trail that led from the parking area at the top of the falls to the Amicalola Falls Lodge and have some lunch before descending the trail beside the falls.

The trail from the parking area led up to the driveway circle in front of the lodge, and Fred stopped to take a picture of me in front of the lodge. We went inside the lodge to see what the lunch offerings were, and found that there was a buffet being served in the dining room. We hung out in the four‑storey lobby for a while and then went in to have some lunch. We had a great table right by the windows, and we could look out and see the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains stretching off into the distance. Fred got a nice close-up of the Fall color. After we finished lunch, we walked around the lobby areas of the lodge for a while, and took a few pictures. You can have a look at some of them if you click on the thumbnails below:

At the Top of Amicalola Falls

After lunch, we left the lodge and walked back down the path to the parking area and down a further path to reach a park area at the top of the falls.

When we got back down to the parking area, we descended the stairs you can see in this picture of me at the top of Amicalola Falls and came out onto the footbridge across the top of the falls. Standing in the middle of the bridge, we could look upstream behind us at the picturesque stream that flowed through the relatively flat upland to go under the bridge and over the falls. You can see an even better picture that Fred took of the water going over the falls here.

We spent a few minutes here at the top of the falls, just standing on the bridge walkway looking out across the valleys below at the smoky hills and fall color. You can see a couple of nice shots of the view from Fred and I here and here.

Then we walked to the far end of the bridge to find the entrance to the stairway path down. Just before we began our descent, I saw a family with two little girls trying to take a photo of themselves with their camera. It appeared not to be working, so I volunteered to take a picture of the four of them with my own camera, which I did. Then I made a short movie to allow the father to tell me his email address. That night, I emailed the picture (and the movie) to them. I got a nice reply later that they had received it.

I took a couple of movies here at the top of the falls, and you can look at them using the players below:

At the Top of Amicalola Falls In this movie, we walk out onto the bridge over the falls, and you can see the area around us, the stream going under the bridge and the top of the falls.

At the Top of the Stairway Descent After we finished walking around at the top of the falls, I made a movie of Fred over by the entrance to the stairway path back down.

We can divide the return trip to the Visitor Center into three distinct parts. The first was the descent of the incredible stairway system from the top of the falls to a wheelchair-accessible walkway that leads across the face of the mountain to enable people to go from a parking area on the road to the top of the falls over to the observation platform for the falls themselves. The second part of the return trip would include our time at the falls themselves. Finally, the third part of the trip back would be the walk back to the Visitor Center from the falls. We'll divide the multitude of pictures that we took into these three sections.

Descending the Stairway to the Paved Path

I must admit that we have seen a number of stairways that have been built for hikers to get up and down steep hillsides; we just saw one a couple of days ago at Cloudland Canyon State Park. But these stairways were among the most intricate and the longest of any we have seen.

It wasn't until we got down to the very bottom of the stairway system that we found a sign explaining a bit about how it was constructed and how it is maintained. I thought I should reproduce that sign for you; it is at right.

Over at Cloudland Canyon, there were some stairway runs that exceeded forty steps. Here, perhaps because the park handles a lot more visitors, the stairs were built with short runs and many landings where people could stop and rest without blocking the stairs for others. In addition, most of the risers were of metal mesh, rather than wood, improving the traction in bad weather- again probably because this park gets many more visitors than Cloudland Canyon. So we applaud the State Park folks in Georgia for doing an excellent job here (as they have done at other parks we've been to in the state).

We started down the first staircase, which took us to a point where we could get our first view of Amicalola Falls just below the bridge across the top of the falls. You can see that bridge in the picture. The incredible stairways wound back and forth down through the forest. It was almost as if the builders had tried not to disturb any trees at all, as the stairs and landings zig‑zagged through the woods. Occasionally, we would stop and look back up the stairs the way we had come.

Not only were the stairs interesting to walk up and down, but all the way down to the bottom we could see Amicalola Falls over to our left. Once we got a ways down the hillside, we could see the main part of the falls; it was visually beautiful and the sounds of the water were a welcome accompaniment as we descended the stairs. Though there were other folks around, it wasn't crowded- and that made it nice, too. When we got close to the bottom of the stairway portion of the descent, we could see the bridge over the stream down below us, and close to the bottom Fred stopped to take a last picture of me on a stairway landing.

It wasn't just pictures on the way down; we both took some movies as well.

Beginning the Stairway Descent Near the top of the stairway system, Fred made a movie of Amicalola Falls and the stairs looking down. His camera zoom made the falls come alive, and, although parts of the movie are a little jerky (Fred moves his camera too fast when panning from side to side), it is an excellent introduction to the descent.

Walking Down the Stairs Shortly after we got onto the stairway system, I thought it might be interesting to show you what going down them was like, so I just held out my camera in front of me as I followed Fred down the first part of the stairs. You'll feel as if you are walking along with us.

Back and Forth Down the Stairs When we got maybe a third of the way down, I could see ahead that there was a particularly intricate stretch of stairs, with people walking back and forth as if they were in a queue at DisneyWorld. Here is a movie of what that looked like.

Near the Bottom of the Stairs From one of the landings towards the bottom of the stairway, I could get great views of the falls, so I made a movie panning slowly down them so you can see them and listen to them. You'll also be able to see the observation bridge down below us.

Below are thumbnails for some of the many good pictures that we took while descending the stairway system down to the paved pathway over to the observation bridge. Click on as many of these thumbnails as you wish to view the full-size pictures:

On the Amicalola Falls Observation Bridge

When we came to the bottom of the stairway system, we were on a paved path that runs across the face of the hillside, and the sign in front of us directed us to the left to the base of the falls. The path we found ourselves on returns to the Visitor Center in either direction, although only to the left is it wheelchair-accessible and automobile-accessible. Of course we were going over to the base of the falls. Before we left the stairway, I turned around to get a picture of Fred standing by the sign describing the hike up the stairway system, and you can see that picture here. We turned left to go over to the base of the falls, and when we were a ways down the pathway, I turned back to show Fred, the pathway and the bottom of the stairway system. Have a look at that picture here. After a hundred feet or so we were on the bridge over the creek, looking up at Amicalola Falls.

One of the first things we did when we got to the bridge was to make movies of the falls; Fred and I each made a movie of our own.

Amicalola Falls When I got to the bridge over the creek, and could look up at the falls, I made a movie to trace the watercourse from the top of the falls, down under the bridge and then on down the hillside towards the Visitor Center.

Amicalola Falls Here is a little different view of the falls in a movie that Fred made. As usual, he puts his excellent zoom lens to good use to show the falls and the course of the stream down past where I am standing.

The name of the falls comes from a Cherokee word, "amicalola," which means "tumbling waters." The creek that forms the falls here is called Amicalola Creek, but until the park was formed out of land sold to the State of Georgia in 1940 it was on private land, and its former name, if there was one, is unknown. At 729 feet high, Amicalola Falls is the highest cascade in Georgia.

Both Fred and I took a lot of pictures on and around the observation bridge here at the falls, and we've winnowed them down to a relative few. There are thumbnails for these pictures below; just click on them to see the full-size image:

Here are some final movies of Amicalola Falls. In some respects, they duplicate the two previous ones, but you might want to take a look at them anyway:

Amicalola Falls - Part 1 Here is another movie of the top section of Amicalola Falls- from the precipice down to the observation bridge.

Amicalola Falls - Part 2 This movie picks up at the observation bridge and shows the lower portion of the creek and falls.

The Precipice at Amicalola Falls This movie simply focuses on the top portion of Amicalola Falls; you can watch and listen to the water cascading over the precipice.

Hiking Back to the Amicalola Falls Visitor Center

When we left the observation bridge, we headed down the stairs that paralleled the course of Amicalola Creek as it tumbled down the hillside. The stairways here were only about half as long (measured by the number of steps) as those from the paved pathway to the top of the falls. But they were interesting, again with a number of switchbacks and landings. A short way down from the bridge, Fred had me stop on one of the landings so he could get the picture you see here.

When we got down a ways, the forest cleared a bit I could look back and zoom in on the upper stairway system, showing it winding its way upward through the forest. Amicalola Creek was our welcome and constant companion, and we took numerous opportunities to just sit down and commune with it. At a couple of these stops, Fred took my picture and I took his.

At the Beginning of the Stairway Trail

When we got to the bottom of the stairway trail, I stopped to make a movie of what our hike would have looked like at this point had we come this way first, and then down the back way by the lodge at the end.

When we got to the bottom of the stairway system (where the sign you saw earlier was located), the trail continued along the valley floor, still paralleling the creek. The trail and creek wound through some campsites and group sites, until the creek reached a level area where it formed a small lake. We followed the trail around the side of the small pond to where the creek flowed out. At this point, it came alongside the park road.

Here, there were some stairs up to the park road, and here there was a trail sign directing us across the road to pick up the trail on the other side. There, we found that the next section of the trail was a boardwalk, as it appeared that this side of the road was usually wet and marshy. This boardwalk led along the road back to the Visitor Center, going up into the woods about an eighth of a mile before it ended back at the rear of the Visitor Center at the same point where we had started out five hours ago.

We found Amicalola Falls to be a really great place to visit, and we did a little of everything. If you are ever in the area, you should definitely stop in and experience it for yourselves.

Getting to Ted's House in Charlotte

Our plans are to have dinner with my nephew Ted in Charlotte, stay there overnight, and then go hiking with Ted for a while tomorrow. He said he knows of a neat state park up towards the NC mountains with a great waterfall.

To get to Charlotte, we left Amicalola State Park by the park entrance road, and then turned east on Georgia 52. From there, we let the GPS guide us through a whole bunch of back roads and a number of small towns to get over to I-85 north.

Then it was a two-hour trip up the interstate out of Georgia and across South Carolina before we entered North Carolina, passed by Gastonia and on into Charlotte.

Charlotte has, like most places, grown a great deal since I grew up there. I-85 used to be the only expressway through town. It was joined in the late 1960s by I-77 coming up from the south and heading north. In the 1980s, the city built its first belt expressway to circle around the south part of the city; there had been no good east-west route until then. In the 1990s, an outer belt was added, since so many people had moved further out. In the 2000s, Independence Boulevard, which when I was growing up had been just a six lane major thorofare, was turned into an expressway for most of its length, and it was that expressway that we took to get to the southeastern part of the city where Ted lives on Eastview Drive.

Ted lives on Eastview Drive, a small cul-de-sac east of Wendover Road and south of Monroe Road. He actually lives quite near Sharon Memorial Park where we buried my father back in 1974, and in an area that I knew pretty well from growing up in Charlotte. We found his house with no problem; I'd been there numerous times before.

My nephew, who is a detective with the Charlotte Police Department, has a nice house on the Eastview cul-de-sac. He has a rescue dog, Lucy, and there is open parkland just behind his house, which is ideal for her since it gives her a safe place to run around.

We got to Ted's about seven, talked for a while, and then went to get some supper over in Cotswold Shopping Center. Then Ted put us up for the night (thanks, Ted!).

You can use the links below to continue to the album page for different day.

	November 23, 2010: South Mountains State Park (NC)
	November 21, 2010: Northwest Georgia Waterfalls
	Return to the Index for Our Thanksgiving Trip