I’ve hiked Gahuti, which is the main trail of Fort Mountain State Park for people who like that serious mileage mayhem. However, what about all those people who like their forest in nice, 30 minute increments? With like a snack hut or something along the way? Fort Mountain provides. Come and enjoy a leisurely stroll through the heart of Fort Mountain State Park, made just especially for weekend warriors, families with small kids, and anyone who really likes those boats with the paddles in them.
Is it goat approved? Yeah, not really. This hike goes through the campground and other high traffic areas of the park. People tend to want photos, and it gets annoying when many, many people want photos.
How you get there: Google Fort Mountain State Park, then park at the mountain biker parking area located at 34.766091, -84.704571. It’s a gravel loop (sort of) with like little incuts into the forest you can park in. Not a normal parking lot, but does usually have plenty of places to park.
Time for the hike: 6.63 miles in a loop with two small loops to take on Big Rock Trail and around the lake.
Best season to do the hike: Much of it is through highly popular areas of the park, so pick a weekday, or come prepared to deal with the crowd and mountain bikers zooming down behind you on the trail. In general there’s usually something worth seeing on this route any time of the year, but the falls on Big Rock Trail are only worth viewing after a good rain – otherwise they’re more like trickles!
Trails to Take
Starting off at the mountain biker parking lot, walk out to where the parking lot joins the road. The trail you need is near the sign board, it’s listed as Trail 303 in the official trail map, and is mountain biking only by permit but you can hike it without one. Frankly, the soil around it is so loose I don’t think it’s much fun to mountain bike. However realize it’s also really steep – so mountain bikers coming down it at you…are not going to be going slow! Otherwise, it’s a generic forest service access trail, about wide enough for a golf cart, and zig zagging down the mountain till it reaches the campground and exceptionally large parking area for the lake and playground access.
The campground is honestly really nice and well kept up. Given the beauty of Fort Mountain State Park, and its proximity to a bunch of awesome hiking in Cohutta I would honestly recommend camping here if you want to do a developed campground trip with the kids. The campground is right next door to the lake, which has a swimming beach (not super big, but nice), opportunities to fish, a playground, and paddle boats/kayaks for rent. The lake itself is pretty nice, and after a quick loop around the road past ranger housing and rental cabins, you’ll come to the dam for the lake, at which point you can turn left and get on a loop trail around said picturesque body of water.
It’s a nice, developed graveled trail, with scenic views of the lake and the sadly closed Japanese-esque visitor center with the unusual roof. Hopefully they’ll redo it someday, as walking the lake I definitely get vibes like I’m back in Iwakuni, Japan, particularly in Fall. You loop around the lake, come back to the dam, hang a left, hike maybe 20 foot and a large signboard will show you the trail map for Big Rock Trail on your right, whose claim to fame is it’s pretty rocky. That trail cuts downhill, with many, many rocks to check out and comes up along a stream that in dry conditions is barely a trickle, but in wet is a respectable waterfall. You’ll turn right, now walking along the edge of the mountain with scenic views of the surrounding countryside in winter when the leaves are off the trees. Then turn right again to come up along another creek with a when-it-rains-its-a-waterfall to enjoy, then back up to the road to finish the loop. The route is up and down, so I’d rate it a moderate instead of an easy like the lake trail.
Now I just walked up the road, so I could check out the rental cabins. They aren’t exciting, but they are well built and maintained and clearly popular. All the cabins are within reasonable walking distance of the lake and other amenities, and they are, as you come up to the end of the road, really close to the trails! Watch for a roadbed going into the woods on your right, which provides a cut through to Gahuti Trail, which you’ll hike along, passing both branches of Goldmine Creek Trail, until you reach the red blazed 301 biking trail. Hang a left on 301, and walk out to the entrance road. Don’t forget to check out the overlook with the bench on your way!
You cross the road and continue on 301, ignoring any cross trails till you arrive back at the road, cross, and now you’re back at the car and ready to roll up to the trading post for that snack and a magnet for the fridge so everyone reaching in for the milk knows you know where Fort Mountain State Park is.
Trail down to the campgroundBeachBear poop on the trailJewel weedRocks on the trailOverlook
In Sum: I always like Fort Mountain State Park, even beyond the fort ruins – if I were building my version of a perfect world, this state park would definitely make the cut. There’s no trail here that I don’t like, they have a nice campground, you can rent kayaks, and it has a cool fire tower. There’s really nothing to improve on.
Yes, you can electric bike the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail. Frankly, it’s about the only way for us regular plebs to do the dang thing! Previous record: 100 miles in a day. New record: 115 miles in a day around the largest body of freshwater in the Southeastern US. The Okeechobee Scenic Trail is a mostly paved (yes, you read that right) trail around the entirety of that big, shallow blue circle at the bottom of Florida. The sections that aren’t paved are various levels of gravel, all easy biking except the poorly maintained ~20 miles of gravel two track running on the western side from Okeechobee down to the Sam Griffith Overlook (27.000062, -81.068325). This section is bike-able by non-super athletes, but it’s kind of annoying, and it’s recommended you do that first, when you’re fresh by riding the lake counter clockwise. We rode that section the first day as a test, so when we rode clockwise around the lake we stayed on the levee until we got to that point, and then we got out on 78, which has a wide shoulder, to ride back in the dark rather than attempt that overgrown mess full of coyotes and gators and hogs at night. While the official tally is 109 miles for the trail, a realistic day ride which includes stopping for food and orienteering is closer to 115-120 miles round trip, (assuming no sections of the levee are closed – be sure to check online that everything’s open to ride on before you go!).
The terrain is flat with mild up and down grades, except where you have to go around the locks and other water control structures going into the lake and at that point you’ll have to get out on the road most of the time and at times ride up and over elevated bridges (i.e. Florida mountains). There is some orienteering involved – one pedestrian bridge around a water control structure was closed, and the rest you have to stop and kind of figure out how to get around. There is always a way, but sometimes, particularly just east of Okeechobee, you may have a fair bit of road riding (1-3 miles) to make it happen. A few locks were open and you could ride right across and keep going. On the western side the trail leaves the levee and there’s a sign that says “trail end” at the junction but the trail doesn’t end, it turns right and leaves the levee. From there it rides along the road for about 10 miles on a dedicated paved trail. A shorter section just west of Okeechobee if you’re riding counter clockwise has the trail dead end into the road and a double orange blaze on a power pole indicates the trail turns onto the road, heads south, and then can be rejoined once you reach a trailer park retirement community by riding down to the park and up onto the levee on a gravel two track blocked by a gate marked as the “Florida Scenic Trail” of which the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail is a part. Otherwise, everything is on the levee.
While it is possible to hike this trail the sheer monotony of it (plus the hot asphalt) makes it not exactly appealing for slow speed travel like hiking. We did see one person camped at a lone picnic shelter around the lake that might have been a thru hiker. Camping is officially allowed on the trail and there are several developed campgrounds around the rim. Supposedly there’s a facebook group that maintains water caches around the lake for hikers too. However, neither the lake nor the adjoining canals/creeks are recommended as sources of drinking water even with water filtration. The lake is well known for its high levels of phosphorus and other agricultural pollution as well as toxic algae blooms that release a poison that can cause kidney failure in humans. If that’s not enough to warn you off you can also know you’re drinking water from a lake with a 30 year history of illegal bulk tire dumping and that an alligator might bite off your arm while you’re trying to get a drink. Which leads me to the next point – you can’t swim in this lake unless you want to feed the gators, get sick from the algae, or otherwise expire. Instead, hit up one of several parks around the lake for free drinking water at the restroom water fountains or hit a gas station in one of the several surrounding small towns.
Though be warned, this is a large lake that attracts fishermen and not much else, don’t expect it to be touristy like Palm Beach or Fort Myers. The vast majority of the lake rim is rural farm land raising either cattle or sugar cane, which while scenic makes this paved trail actually remote, rural, and nearly backcountry – there are long distances between water and food sources. This means you’ll get a ton of wildlife for a paved path, but you’re also at the mercy of the people, wildlife, and elements. Pahookee/Canal Point are rough towns full of rough people but they have a variety of lunch options. Okeechobee is a hard drinking fishermen spot, but it does have a Publix and a Walmart plus that huge KOA practically across the road from the trail. Moor Haven actually seems pretty safe and is a large town with food options. Buckhead Ridge is a nice little retirement community of trailers with a good Dollar Tree. There’s nothing to eat in Lake Port if you’re thinking about lunching halfway, you’ll need to eat before or afterwards. Otherwise, the other towns are either too far off the trail or inconsequential. There is no food directly adjacent to the trail – you’ll have to get off to get anything. Water can be accessed directly adjacent via those parks previously mentioned, as can restroom facilities because that levee is wide open. There are no trees to pee behind here!
Along with the challenges previously mentioned there is also the environment. The lake is basically a humid desert – you need to get serious about sun protection from start to finish of the ride. This is the only place other than the desert in Utah I ended up with severe sunburn on my lips. As in swollen to the point I looked like I had gone south to Florida to get lip filler put in instead of ride a bike. You’ll want to dress like the desert – long sleeves or arm covers, closed toe shoes, bike gloves, neck gator, a brim on your helmet if you have it, and long pants. Anything exposed needs 50-75 spf water proof sunscreen applied every 4-5 hours of the ride. Buy the 30 spf lip balm from CVS in Okeechobee. Wear sunglasses. This is a backcountry trail, regardless of how developed it looks and deserves respect if you don’t want a whole body sunburn or sun poisoning halfway through your epic ride. Remember to sunscreen the top of your head too because that helmet has holes! Temperature wise in October it was still running 87-90F in the hottest part of the day – if you’re coming down here from up north that is going to be a major temperature shock, plan time to acclimatize.
All the technical details over, suffice it to say that despite the flat pavement running to the horizon on this ride, it’s not a boring bike ride for a 10-16 hour marathon pedal. You’ll see the physical flood control infrastructure of the dike (and ride across a lot of it) including locks, pumping stations, what I think are dike monitoring stations with solar panels, the rim canal, piles of rock supplies for the dike, drainage canals, and of course the dike itself. On the western side vast cattle ranches with bos indicus and bos indicus cross cattle (think Brahmin) provide scenic vistas of multi colored cattle under palm trees. To the south US Sugar, a vast sugarcane growing enterprise, has fields of sugar cane to the horizon. When they are burning the cane as part of harvest the smoke produced can be so large that it spans a significant part of the horizon and spawns clouds in the upper atmosphere. There are some orange groves and banana trees, along with a huge selection of palms. Air boats can be spotted on the northwestern side of the lake, and we saw a float plane on the eastern side. There were swampy buggies behind hauled on the road, but we never saw one in action.
Wildlife you can see (and which we saw) includes hogs, snakes, gators cruising out on the water, apple snails, non native iguanas, and coyotes. None of these critters were on top of the dike, they stayed to the edge of the swamp and the water, so forget about running over a gator’s tail while riding. A portion of the northeastern dike was heavily marked by coyote scat where I guess Florida real estate is hot even for the coyotes. PRO TIP: Apple snails are really attractive critters, but in Florida they can carry rat lungworm, a potentially fatal human zoonotic parasite. The parasite can be contracted by consumption of the snail or accidental intake of its associated slime. Handling live snails or their very attractive and large shells and not washing your hands afterwards is a bad idea. I did pick up two shells that were dry and out of water…and found out about this later. The parasite survives up to 72 hrs after the snail’s death if the shell is in the water, and a shorter period of time if the shell is dry. I’m not dead, but then again, I was lucky to pick up dry shells that had been out in the sun for some time before I found them!
Along with terrestrial wildlife the lake is a bird mecca. Birds are everywhere – I personally spotted 2 wood storks, great blue herons, tricolored herons, great egrets, clouds of cattle egrets, white ibis, osprey, a belted kingfisher, a load of common grackles, 3 turkeys, black head vultures, turkey vultures, and lots of anhingas out fishing and drying their wings. PRO TIP: bring binoculars! It saves on arguing about whether that’s a log or a gator floating out in the lake.
Of course, the least popular wildlife for us was the massive Florida mosquitos. The mosquitos start about sunset and continue into the early morning hours – they are huge, have a painful bite, and come in clouds. If you ride at least 10 mph you’ll be able to avoid being bitten, but time your battery changes carefully if you don’t want to be drained of blood. I have been told they are also attracted to expensive sunscreen, so buy generic if you can. The one camper we saw had erected a mosquito net around a picnic table in order to eat dinner in peace.
Is it goat approved? I’m adding this because, due to the actually relatively remote nature of this trail, I think you could seriously hike this with a goat. Now, this is the land of alligators, so you’ll need some precautions plus the goat will have to carry its own water, but there’s plenty of grass on the dike and nobody much around in the off season. They don’t allow horses, but a dog sized goat would probably make the grade.
How you get there: Personally, we stayed at the Okeechobee KOA because it’s right across the road almost from the trail and the parking lot for the trail in Lake Okeechobee closes at midnight – which means you could get back late, exhausted, and not be able to get your car out to drive back to the hotel. It’s not fancy, but it’s not a bad spot. If you’re expecting kids on banana bikes and families this one has a bar and seems to cater more to men who want to fish, golf as a break from fishing, and park their wives and girlfriends at the campground’s large pool. Not a bad scene, but different from what I usually get when I go suburban and rent a spot at a KOA.
Time for the ride: Officially 109 miles in a loop around the lake and some adjacent swamp. In reality closer to 115-120 miles as you have to get off to eat if you didn’t bring all your food and to get off for water unless you’re towing a trailer. We averaged about 3 gallons of water and Gatorade for the ride per person. That’s 21lb of weight you’d rather carry in portions instead of all at once and only continue carrying till you stop at the local restroom.
Best season to ride: The coolest season you can afford. While January and December will offer you the coolest temperatures, they also offer you the highest rates for places to stay. June through November is hurricane season, so your trip may be cancelled, but October and November will offer you the lowest cost in terms of accommodations and other expenses in town during the year. Plus the trail, which is already fairly lightly travelled will be deserted – we went 20-30 miles at times without seeing anyone at all on the trail. On the entire trip excepting the big park in Okeechobee we saw maybe 20 people. If that. There was only one other long distance cyclist.
Starting in Okeechobee at the north top of the lake we rode clockwise around the lake. If you want to ride the whole lake in a single day and you are not willing to ride on the road after it gets dark I highly recommend riding the lake counter clockwise because as mentioned earlier the worst section of gravel is in the northwestern corner of the lake. It’s over grown and not somewhere you would want to try and ride after dark in alligator hell.
We started off at the Lake Okeechobee Park. This has a large parking area, but the parking area closes at midnight and doesn’t open till the morning, so it’s advisable to stay in town nearby if you think you’ll be back late as you could end up with your car stuck in the parking area. The park has a fishing pier and an abundance of water birds and grackles. There’s also a restroom, but I did not see a water source. You’ll need to hit the gas station across the road for that.
Heading east the levee runs through the park and then you ride along the levee which is paved until you reach the Taylor Creek Access Point. At which point you’ll need to get on the road (441) and ride across the car bridge. On most of the ride you’ll be able to ride out to the road, ride across a bridge, then immediately ride back and get back on the trail. However, here it won’t be so easy due to restricted access (there’s a gate that was closed when we were riding). Instead, you’ll need to ride down the road to the Nubbin Slough Boat Launch at 27.192949, -80.763729 to get back on the levee.
You’ll get back on the levee and keep riding. The ring canal will be on your left, the lake on your right as you cross a lock near a boat ramp, and keep on riding. You’ll see yellow writing on the pavement (E35…). This appears to be some kind of mile marker, as the number counts down as you ride and each marker is a mile apart. Based on a rough estimate this is the mileage from your point down to the Army Corps of Engineers Headquarters, which is further down the lake and will be passed on the ride. You’ll also see scat probably from coyotes religiously deposited at relatively even intervals along the dike. Because coyotes don’t have purple spray paint or pink marker tape to mark their property.
You’ll come up to the Chancey Bay Boat Lock which allows boats to move from the rim canal into the main lake and vice versa. Somewhere around here you’ll start hitting sections of trail that are gravel two track. Trucks do drive on the trail as the levee usually has some kind of maintenance going on, so keep an eye out. One snuck up on us and honked and I about rode down the side of the levee.
Port Mayaca Lock and Dam is a particularly large lock leading into the lake from a connecting canal. The name originates from a group of Native Americans that once lived in the area. You cannot ride over this lock, and will instead have to ride over the elevated car bridge and then around and under the bridge to get back on the trail. Note that the spot to get back onto the trail is on a blind corner on a road where 18 wheelers come around the corner at 60 mph. Seriously, person I was with almost bought it because they didn’t see the truck coming around the corner. Very fortunately the truck saw them!
After Port Mayaca the rim canal dwindles to a weedy ditch and the ride continues. You’ll cross over various water control structures and pumping stations, and pass what appears to be groves of citrus trees. At Canal Point Recreation Area you’ll have to get out on 98 to go around the lock again, but stop to check out the railroad bridge crossing the canal, which can be turned to allow boats to pass. You can run Lakeshore Drive and pop back on the levee trail shortly after crossing the bridge. The trail here is gravel, but fine gravel, not big stones. The general area is a little rough and impoverished, so stick to the levee unless you’re hungry, in which case you’ll want to not get back on the levee at Canal Point Recreation Area and instead navigate the parallel car roads into town and the local restaurants, gas station, and Dollar General. Again, not exactly a high rent district, so choose your spot to stop with care. We stopped at a gas station Subway, which wasn’t half bad, but I came out to find a swamp person complete with a giant glass coffee table statue of buddha on a rope around his neck regaling the person I was riding with with all the awesome ways to die that exist in Florida. Honestly I’d trust the alligators more than that individual. Needless to say this an interesting area and not in a good way.
You can get back on the trail at the fancy Pahokee Marina, which is probably the nicest thing in Pahokee. There is a campground right along the lake here too, just below the levee for those in search of alternative places to stay that are right at the trail besides the Okeechobee KOA. The levee is once again paved, and now you’re headed for real towards the bottom of the lake. If they’re burning sugar cane at the US Sugar farm at the bottom of the lake you’ll be able to see the massive fires from here off in the distance on the horizon. One of the ones we saw was so large it spawned an upper atmosphere cloud from the ash and moisture rising from the fields. You’ll start seeing large piles of stone along the levee in places – near as I can tell these are stock piles for future needs for emergency repairs, etc. to the levee. Some appear to be local limestone, which is pretty cool to stop and check out.
As you ride you’ll enter into the area of the sugar cane fields, which are uniform man high cane fields stretching to beyond the horizon. You’ll come up on the Paul Rardin Park, which has a restroom (and probably a water fountain, but I did not confirm) should you need the facilities. From here on we started seeing more alligators too after a morning of pretty sparse spotting at the north eastern end of the lake. Keep an eye out for the gators cruising by out on the lake. The lake itself is usually only about 13 foot deep at it’s deepest point, and can only get up to 18.5 foot deep before the dike is in danger of failing, so gators don’t have to work really hard to get around on most of the water.
You’ll keep riding past sugar cane till you reach Torrey Island and the swing bridge that allows access to it. There’s a campground here as well and apparently an observation tower, though due to time limitations we did not explore the island and go see it. Around here was the worst gate on the ride – most of the gates had little passes for bikers and hikers, but this gate was so tight to the guard rails we had to lay the bikes down and drag them under the gate – not fun to put it mildly.
You’ll get down to the South Bay Boat ramp and then the levee makes an obvious turn and heads along the bottom of Lake Okeechobee. Near here within easy riding distance is more food and gas stations if needed. The rim canal remerged as a stretch of water between the levee and Torrey Island near the air strip, and now the levee continues along the rim canal and the edge of the island/swamp land the separates the canal from the lake proper. When you reach John Stretch Park you’ll have another restroom with a working water fountain to visit if needed right along the edge of the levee, and then it’s back to the never ending sugar cane, sometimes with what looks like refineries in the distance.
The rim canal will continue, with the lake on the other side till you get up to Clewiston, which is a fairly large town. The lake disappears in the distance and is replaced by the rim canal being backed by swamp and palm trees. There’s a large lock here that you’ll need to ride down to the road to get around again, and at the point you’ll pass the headquarters of the Army Corps of Engineers. You’ll have to navigate your way through the city streets back up the levee after crossing the car bridge. It’s in the vicinity of this town that I found empty apple snail shells – again see the introduction on warnings about handling these snails and their shells.
From here you’ll continue to ride and the number of alligators floating around started to go up, though whether that was due to the time of day or the location I don’t know. At least one young alligator ran for it from the bank near us, and we also spotted a wood stork and a coyote through here along with more common birds and wildlife. Keep riding as you’ll now have the rim canal on the inside of the levee and another stretch of water on the outside. There are locks and pumping stations as you ride, until you start to turn the corner and come up into Moor Haven, a town that was devastated by catastrophic flooding before the building of the modern levee. The Moor Haven lock and dam requires another detour out to the car road, over a very tall raised bridge that has a walled sidewalk across it, then back up First Street, right on Canal Street and onto the levee.
You keep on riding up the levee until you reach 26.924819, -81.122296. Here a sign says the trail ends and the levee continues, crossing Hwy 78. Instead of continuing on the levee you turn right and descend onto a specialized paved bike path that parallels 78. In this general vicinity we encountered a real cowboy on a horse with a big rifle and another buddy of his crouched in the grass, also with a big rifle, facing the swamp from the top of the levee with the sun setting. Surreal thing to run up on, glad whatever they had gathered to do combat with wasn’t me!
You’ll keep riding along the road until the levee comes back at 26.970904, -81.117522, at which point you’ll get back on up on the levee to your right and keep riding. You can ride through the next lock/pumping station, but when you get up the next one (26.999346, -81.069187) you have a choice to make. If it’s near dusk ride down 78 back to Okeechobee on the relatively wide shoulder. If it’s not dusk, you’re about to start the hardest section of gravel two track on the ride. Use 78 to cross over, then turn right and go back up to the levee. Here the trail degrades to rough, overgrown gravel. We saw turkey on this section of the route as well as snakes. Airboats use a route adjacent to the levee and can be heard long before they are seen they are so ridiculously loud. There’s a couple small boat landing like areas, and they have something marked as Big Bear Beach on Google, but there’s nowhere I would describe as a beach and certainly many, many reasons to never go swimming or sunbathing on this route!
You get up to Indian Prairie Canal and you’ll have to go back on 78 and go around to continue as you have many times before at this point. You’ll keep riding down the rough partially overgrown gravel till you reach Buckhead, where the trail comes up and dead ends into the Southern Sun RV Park. Just south of this park is a Dollar Tree if you’re needing supplies. You’ll get back out on 78 and cross the Kissimee River, which along with Fish-eating Creek is a major source of natural water flow into Lake Okeechobee. You’ll have to ride a little ways along 78 till you reach 27.152743, -80.867194 where you can turn right and get back on the levee. Now it’s paved, easy going, and watch for alligators in the rim canal between the levee and the cattle pastures and RV parks. Then you’re back at the Lake Okeechobee Park and it’s time to find the car and find somewhere to get off that bike!
Birds hanging out at the Lake Okeechobee Park – I swear the picnic tables get more use from them than people on this ride. Trail SignageAsphalt surface on rideLess maintained gravel surface on rideMassive mosquito trying to eat my bike seatBanded Water SnakeApple Snail shellAnhinga drying its wingsWood StorkCattle Egret (aka Parking Lot Egret cause they like to hang out in parking lots)Flock of cattle egrets on the leveeOne of many, many gators on the rideOne of several remote picnic tables being used as a hang out spot for vulturesBeehives – raising bees is really popular around the lake for some reasonCattle farming around the lakePort Mayaca LockHuge fire from burning sugar caneMonitoring station on the leveeSwamp buggy (used to drive through the Everglades/swamp) in townCamping spot on the levee trailArmy Corps of Engineers HeadquartersCutting through Pohokee off the levee to find lunchSqueezing around the gates at the locks. This one is easy. Others are not!Turning a corner on the lakeRiding past the sugar cane fields at the bottom of the lakeCattle ranches on the western side of the lake
In sum: Looks like a paved country park trail when you first get on it. Rides like a 16 hour hell trip through a burning desert filled with poisonous water and carnivorous wildlife. Appearances can be deceiving.
Got a new ride and wanted to test it out. In the process I learned two things: 1. Never do this route when it’s nice weather and been dry for a while, the motorcyclist tear up the gravel to the point it’s like riding on melted Rocky Road ice cream with the emphasis on rock and 2. Never assume you can pedal anything. Aerial Rider is apparently extremely bad at designing bikes to allow you do to the primary purpose of a bike (that is, pedaling). On the other hand this route will offer you (should you decide to ride something made by another brand) a spring, a hidden waterfall, a gorgeous pond, 12 miles of asphalt along a river, the fish hatchery, an old quarry, two old bridges, and all the jeepie and dirt bike oggling you desire. There’s also two campgrounds and some road side pull offs if you’re in the mood to bike camp.
How you get there: I generally park at the Suches post office, though anywhere on forest service land on this loop is generally free game and generally safe. I have never overnight parked at the post office, there’s only a few spaces so I suspect you would get towed if you camped and left your car for too long there.
Time for the ride: The ride is a loop up onto the top of the mountains via Cooper Gap Road then turning down the mountain at Hightower Gap on Rock Creek Road, and back around to Suches on Hwy 60. Total of 33.1 miles roundtrip with a mixture of gravel of various level of cruddiness and some nice recently paved asphalt, mostly on Hwy 60.
Best season to do this ride: I would avoid when there’s snow (or a high chance) as the ridge line will get snow (and have really horrible wind) even when Suches itself isn’t that bad. Plus 60 can snow over in the pass coming up from Dahlonega and close which makes it hard to drive south after the ride too. Any other time this route is great. I will say that Rock Creek Road is at its absolute most gorgeous, to me, on a very, very cold day in winter. It’s okay in the fall too.
Route to Ride
Starting at the Post Office, you head south on Highway 60 towards Coopers Gap Road. If you can stand the motorcycle crowd Two Wheeled Adventures serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and has camping. If you can’t stand the biker crowd, well, it’s not a major loss cause they tend to not get electric vehicle enthusiasts anyway, so turn right on Coopers Gap and enjoy a moderate climb first on asphalt and then on gravel. There’s a number off turn roads and unofficial jeepie messes to check out as you start along. The route starts out relatively flat, then climbs and starts going up and down along the sides of the mountain. Keep an eye out for the Appalachian Trail crossing at Gooch Gap and a hidden waterfall at 34.650809,-84.069144.
You’ll keep riding mostly uphill till you reach Cooper’s Gap, a major parking area with a few primitive roadside campsites for people getting on the Appalachian Trail. It’s usually busy, so don’t plan on parking here, just ride on through and keep going. As you ride, watch for a cutting to one side of the road – this is an old CCC quarry. Your next intersection is Hightower Gap, where the AT once again crosses and you want to hang a right at this large intersection to go down Rock Creek Road. As you descend, look for a white pipe sticking out of the hill at 34.667283,-84.127365. This is a spring, and can usually be counted on to be running if you need a fill up (but make sure to filter the water). The road continues to drop, running along the edge of a creek that gradually increases in size. There are several pull in roadside campsites and the remains of a few old road beds, now blocked off and used mostly for hunting access.
At 34°40’44.8″N 84°07’57.2″W there’s a drainage and swamp area popular with grouse hunters, and just after that you reach the pond, a gorgeous spot to stop and fish or take a break. Some people bring canoes or kayaks, but straight up this pond is just about too small for that. The pond is stocked by the local hatchery, which after you pass Frank Gross Recreation area (a small 6 site campground that you must reserve online and is generally full) you’ll come up on. This is the Chattahoochee Forest National Fish Hatchery, which you can view from the parking area and has a sign board with information. Unlike the Walhalla fish hatchery it doesn’t seem to be open to the public anymore, but a small stream near the sign posts has young trout in it if you want to get up close and personal with some fish.
From here you continue riding down the gravel road, and you’ll run up on another camping area, this one with a pit toilet that is popular dispersed camping for the rougher end of the boondocking RVers. Trout fisherman use the area frequently. Then it’s down more gravel road past Shady Grove Baptist Church and it’s historical cemetery, around a curve where you can see the ruins of the original bridge at 34.738740, -84.081800 to the right of the road as you cross the creek, and then you hit asphalt and you reach civilization about when you cross the Toccoa River. From here it’s asphalt riding out to 60, hang a right, and now you’re riding down 60. This road is very, very popular with tourists, so you need to stick to that shoulder like glue. It’s very common to see people run off the road because they were watching the scenery instead of the road and drove right off.
Coopers Creek Store is just up the road, and this is about your best place to stop for miscellaneous camp gear, though it can be hit or miss on food. Past that the river comes up along the road and provides scenic vistas of water and trout fishermen as you ride. There’s a barbecue joint that’s open at times along the ride as well if you want lunch, and after some up and down through farmland, you’ll come back around and descend into Suches past the school, and now you’re back at the Post Office and done with the ride.
Riding to Coopers GapMotorcyclists on the road – they are plentiful in season, like apples. Hidden FallsQuarrySpringPondHatcheryOld BridgeOld House on Highway 60
In Sum: I’m not sure how motorcyclists feel about electric vehicles – I get the impression pollution, gas, exhaust, and loud noise are integral to the experience. They’ll have to put really loud horns maybe on electric motorcycles so you can still be a hooligan when the combustion engine goes extinct.
So back before the internet, and even before cars and like actual paved roads (okay, those don’t exist in North Georgia, but I mean, in like the real world before they did)…where exactly did you stay on that long road trip? What was the Airbnb of Upstate South Carolina for the wagon and foot traffic trade?
Mostly it was a room (or possibly just a part of a bed) in whomever had the biggest house in the area. The John H. Goodwin House, (located: 35.088382, -82.451553), with its accompanying country store was one such big house and acted as a stage stop on the road between Greenville and Asheville. The structure was originally built as a two story log cabin in 1790, probably by a guy called Robert Cooke. He had leased the house site and 300 adjoining acres (for his sake I hope that premium bottom land nearby now occupied by a horrendous and unsuccessful golf course) from another dude called Elias Earle. Eventually Cooke bought the land outright, and then sold it to James Pickett. No, we haven’t gotten to Goodwin yet, wait for it. Then Thomas Blythe, the area postmaster, bought the house in about 1840 and he massively enlarged it to the almost inn like structure we see today with two stories and porches.
Eventually Blythe died and the land was purchased by a John Hodges, whom we care absolutely nothing about except that he is the guy who finally sold the house to John H. Goodwin, who also became the local post master on Blythe’s death for Pickett’s Valley. At least from 1842 the house and its store had functioned not only as the stage coach airbnb for the area, but also as a trading post (large numbers of unpaid vouchers, i.e. store credit, were part of the estate when Goodwin died in 1899). With the post master on site, it would also have been the post office for the area.
So you had a place to stay and stop bouncing around in a poorly suspensioned wagon on muddy roads, a place to drop that postcard to your be-bonneted loved one back home, and a store front to pick up whatever hard tack you wanted for the road. You’d also probably get to enjoy some pretty decent fresh food if you went the bed and breakfast option route, as this was the main house for Goodwin’s own small plantation – at its height the farm operated with 30 slaves and grew corn, hogs, butter, and wheat. The original slave residences, per tradition, lay behind the house on the opposite side from the road, and these have now fallen to dust, but the memories of no doubt many a good meal remain in the once freestanding old kitchen now connected to the rear of the house.
The store out front of the house, now seriously restored – in my child hood it was unpainted and boarded up.
At 9.7 miles the Southside Loop Trail is the longest single trail in Croft (though obviously you can combo trails to make them longer, unless you’re having a real airhead moment). It will take you through hills, flat, and along the creek for miles with visits to old farm fields, a roadbed, and a graveyard of what was a long lived but now vanished church and parsonage. So take the goat out for some real mileage for the day on a fun little loop around the western side of Croft.
Note: This loop may not be entirely hikeable when the creek is at flood stage. You’ll have to route around some sections in the southern end of the creek section.
Is it goat approved? This is my sixth or something hike out here with a goat. It is pretty goatable.
How you get there: The parking area of easiest access is located at Southside Park at 34.853655, -81.862303. Note it is a $3 self serviced parking fee to park here ($3 per adult human). It’s up to you how lawful good you want to be here, but realize the main parking area in Croft is not super goat friendly, and will cost you something like $5 a car. The nearest free parking area is all the way on the other side of the park at Lake Johnson, which adds a lot of mileage and you will still have to go through the main area of the park where the goat will attract potentially unwanted attention. PAY THE $3.
Best season for the hike: Outside serious mosquito season, those buggers can be bad along the creek.
Trails to Take
Starting out at the parking lot, you head into the woods past the trail map and hang a pretty much immediate left onto Southside Loop Trail. This is a bit of a maze, as the trails shown don’t reflect all the user side trails, short cuts, and general mountain biking tomfoolery that happens out here. For real, mountain bikers need to learn to stay on the trail! As an aside, because these are technically biking trails, don’t expect them to give right away to anyone on foot either.
In general, to navigate stick to your left while trying to make decisions. There are some kiosks with the trail map in places, and if you just stay to the left you’ll relatively quickly come up to a paved road, which is the road to the now closed Croft municipal dump. Next to the dump is a gravel road that is gated over that goes to a family cemetery with graves going back to the Revolutionary War (and a family that served in what seems to be every major conflict the US has been involved in since then). The graveyard belongs to a now vanished family farm, whose long grown over fields are what you’ll be passing through as you cross the road and continue on the trail.
Part of farming is clearance of rocks from farmland. In Upstate South Carolina there tends to a lot of rocks as my childhood punishments demonstrated. This results in clearance piles of stones at the edge of old field boundaries. You’ll find the first pile of what is probably field clearance stone off to the right of the trail at 34.864036,-81.870154. A second, larger pile shows up shortly thereafter, followed by rusted out barrels that may have been burn barrels (or just simple trash from a homestead trash dump) laying among the leaves.
The route wanders around in the woods, then comes up to a point right next to a powerline cutting. Seriously confusing, but you do NOT go into the powerline cutting, you turn right onto the well worn foot trail and cross a small bridge across the creek. Then, you’re back wandering around in the woods, until eventually you turn and come up along the creek. Now stick to the creek…for a long, long ways. This is my favorite part of the trail frankly, and luckily it’s like 50% of the distance.
Eventually you’ll come up to a cool sandy beach to check out (34.861913,-81.852139) on the creek and then the bridge that crosses over to the rest of Croft. After that the trail makes a sharp, unmarked short turn down hill, crosses a long toppled and buried stone wall, and then turns right along the edge of the hill to start following an old roadbed which was protected from flooding by a stone wall, now nearly hidden under leaves and ferns. The trail will fluctuate between being on the roadbed (sunken as it is) and being up on the stone wall/barrier that protected the road from the creek flooding.
The trail turns up hill, leaving behind the road, which appears to disappear in a flat spot along the creek and then up through the hills to start intersecting with a gravel road. The first intersection you’ll just kind of walk up to the road, then walk away. The second intersection you MUST get out on the road, walk up the road a little ways, and then turn right to continue on the trail. Note the map at the sign at the second intersection I think is wrong – it’s a copy of the map a tthe previous intersection, guess even the Park Service gets confused on this one.
In between the first and second intersections the trail will come up and loop around a low hillside, on which sits the best graveyard on this side of Croft. It contains graves going back into the early 1800s, and a large number of standing fieldstones that may be the graves of slaves, or of others who could not afford full stones. The steps of the church remain, but of the church itself only an empty clearing endures, surrounded by dogwood trees and birdsong. The graveyard (the original) is bounded by a shallow ditch, which must have once been much more substantial, but the unmarked fieldstones spill over it, and march unrelenting to the fallen remains of what must have once been a substantial chimney, perhaps of a parsonage or large house.
After moving on from the graveyard and the second intersection where you walk up the road you’ll pass into the woods, seeing various old roadbeds, and come up behind the shooting range, which is generally heard rather than seen because that big earth berm is supposed to keep you from getting shot. Then trail slides around the edge of the range and it’s off through the not super exciting woods with a few more left hand choices to make until you’re back at the car.
Road to the dumpFirst fieldstone pileHiking through flowers along the creekBox turtle, now righted, that a mountain biker hit and flipped over. Jerk. The sand beachWalking on the sunken road bed (well, the wall that protects, the road is to the right) Fallen gravestone at the graveyard
In sum: I saw a mountain biker hit what I thought was a rock when he came past me on the trail. It turned out to be a geriatric box turtle, that he knocked on his back and then rode off, hit and run style. I turned him back over and set him to the side of the trail. Mountain bikers are the worst trail users ever!
Before it gets to the dramatic and peopled Tallulah Gorge the Tallulah River starts off its journey in southern Natahala at the end of a long, beautiful gravel road that winds through the mountains following the river’s course up stream. A rarity among the mountains, this route is predominately flat (or nearly so for the mountains), making it an ideal scenic ride through the fall leaves, trout fisherman, campers, and finally to the trailheads of Natahala. You just have to deal with a few crazies on the way.
Is it goat approved? You could totally hike this with a goat, one day I plan to.
How you get there: To do the whole road you can start at the top of the road at a paved-ish pull off at 34.921955, -83.524847.
Time for the ride: Out and back to the Natahala trail head for a total of 18 miles out and back. While the route is much, much less challenging than many in the area, it is a constant, stead, mild up hill grade so that the road is “flat” but not really “flat”. Of course, that means you get to coast most of the way back down.
Best season to do this ride: I’ve ridden this in the summer, winter, and fall. All are good, the river is beautiful any time of year. It should be noted that the campers are really heavy during the warmer months and can make the road busy, though I’ve never felt like people were driving too fast or running me off the road out here – the scenery is good enough most people aren’t in a huge hurry.
Route to Ride
Starting at the top of Tallulah River Road you ride down….Tallulah River Road. The first stretch is private houses, many of which show signs of what I like to call Forest Greed syndrome. Forest Greed syndrome is when perfectly sane people get really greedy and decide that they want to own a lot of land – but they don’t want to (or can’t) pay for it. So the logical solution is to buy or build a house next door to a public resource, like a national park, and decide that that resource now belongs to them and ignore the “public” part of public lands. They’ll usually describe their modest half acre this way “Oh, I come up for the weekend to my cabin – 90,000 acres of Chattahoochee is my backyard”. At this point you can mentally resign them to the “scum of the earth” category and go find someone else to talk to, you’ll not have a fulfilling conversation with someone who’s the personification of the demon of greed.
Anyway, once you get past the nut jobs, you’ll pass Nichols Campground, which is mostly permeant campers of the older type and could use a few good roll offs worth of garbage clean up in the vicinity. People camp there with tents occasionally, but why stay at a private campground that’s rough when you could just keep riding and camp at 3 forest service campgrounds that are much nicer (and probably cheaper at $15 a night) or hit a roadside campsite closer to Natahala?
From here the scenery improves dramatically, with a quick stop at the handicap fishing pier to enjoy the view. From there you ride up to the first campground, Tallulah River Campground. This one is almost always full, in a busy season just drive straight down to Sandy Bottoms and don’t even bother looking at the first two campgrounds on the road. The least equipped to camp in the forest also generally camp here – so if you’re wanting to not have to help some guy back a 40 ft motor home into a slot intended for a tent go further into the woods!
Just up from the campground is a bridge and the Coleman River Scenic Area trail comes off right here to your right. Not a bad little trail, but it just dead ends into the woods about a mile from the road, after leading you along the interesting, but not spectacular water course it follows. Fun, but not exciting I would say. Good for running energy off kids on a camping trip though!
The river becomes more rocky as you ride, but the gravel stays in moderate condition and is smooth from all the driving as you continue up around several bends passing trout fishermen, till you reach the crossing to Charlie’s Creek. Charlie’s Creek is a car road, but to get to it you have to go into the river, drive up the river maybe 30 yards, and then onto the road. Why they still allow vehicle access up here is a mystery to me, it seems destructive to the water course in the extreme, but they do. It does make for a great place to wade out and enjoy the river though, and definitely worth a stop.
You keep going up the road, passing old forest fire damage and Tate Branch Campground, with its associated hiking trails, followed by Sandy Bottom Campground. The river stays with you till you pass Sandy Bottom Campground and enter Tate City – the land of McMansions and home to a lot more of those crazy people I mentioned earlier. They have a sign telling you 32 people apparently live in this small enclave. So you’re dealing with at least 32 crazy people. Tred carefully! You might get some of the crazy on you.
Tate City is scenic – a mixture of what were once clearly bottomland farm fields and are now mostly lawns, cabins, or McMansions. A few more normal houses persist, including one particularly old one (white) that might be an original to the area. The mountains surrounding this hidden oasis of bottomland are colored in fall foliage, which makes for a really photogenic ride. They’ve got a “mall” and a few other good laughs sprinkled along the road, as well a community center and a church, but no post office. Then you leave the most heavily populated areas and enter more wooded terrain, passing the Beech Creek Trailhead, which has roadside camping available across from it. There’s also a spring, piped out of an old piece of PVC here, located at 34.997241,-83.555598. One of the crazys near here is smarter than the average crazy and turned his property into a conservation area. It’s still coated in crazy person signage, but he’s getting a tax break, unlike his neighbors! Near here you’ll cross the NC line, which is marked after a fashion.
From here you’ll come up on more occasional houses and then you reach what I like to call the “compound”. I have seen a few of these – in cases of severe Forest Greed people will blockade themselves into little pieces of private property otherwise surrounded by public land, and in an attempt to keep it all to themselves in contradiction to like, commonsense and stuff, they put up a gate to block a tax payer funded forest service owned public road. These guys tried that, but someone told the Georgia rejects you can’t block forest land access in North Carolina, so all that’s left is the support posts for the gate. Unfortunately, you will have to drive through this compound and out the other side (I know, yuck, try to not get the crazy on you, it stains). They tend to tear up the road right inside their compound, which means the pipe that once let the creek under the road was a casualty of their stupidity. Now the creek runs right across the road. Bad for water quality, but the water is a few inches deep, so not so bad for your Toyota Corolla or whatever other off roading vehicle you use.
From here it’s back to nice, relaxing forest service road, till you reach the dead end and the trailhead for Natahala. Met a cool grouse hunter while I was checking the map out here, which is nice. It’s nice to meet non crazys after a day of reading signs that say “private property”, “Slow down, we don’t like cars traveling over 5 mph on a road marked as 25 mph”, “I’ll turn my dogs on you and then get mad if they’re weak and you beat them up” (no for real, that’s happened to me more than once), and of course “If you can see this sign you know that my manhood is so fragile I need to threaten you with gun violence for using a public road”.
Then you drive back through the gorgeous forest populated by nut jobs and back to your car.
Handicap Fishing PierCampgroundRiding along the riverCharlies Creek Car FordOld fire burn overTallulah RiverThere wasn’t that much to see. Except for McMansions and private property signsThe latest in redneck fashion. Also private property signs for sale. View of Tate CityState LineRoadside springThe crazy people compound – yeah, you have to drive right through the middle of it cause these people are the scum of the earth.
In sum: The 1990s Toyota Corolla is the best unsung off roading vehicle ever invented. Jeeps are just posers!
While not open to horses, dog sized pets on leash can readily hike the Peak to Prosperity Rail Trail. At 20 miles out and back, while there’s a lot of mileage out there to walk, I heartily recommend only walking to Pomaria. The trail is a rail line and as such, it isn’t exactly the most exciting hike you’ll ever go on, (though it may be the easiest with its just about zero elevation gain). It’s also a good place to get up close and personal with bikers, walkers, joggers, and on the morning I did this the entire local high school cross country team and one very excited cross country dad following his girls on a bike. It also has a couple large bridges and numerous small trestles if you’re looking to train the goat on that (and to break up the monotony).
Is it goat approved? I would say yes, this is goat approved, though realize when crossing the main trestle across the Broad River you may have to time crossing if it’s really busy.
How you get there: In order to cross the main trestle over the river first thing in the morning (7am-ish) and end of the trip (3pm-ish) for the lowest traffic you’ll want to park at the terminal parking at that bridge, which is located at: 34.243369, -81.318242. It’s a pretty large parking area, but it’s a moderately popular spot to come fish, hang out the bridge, and walk the rail trail, so you know, consider that.
Time for the hike: 12.6 miles out and back to Pomaria. It’s essentially zero elevation gain, and includes the big trestle at the start, another trestle over a roadside park that used to be a homesite amazingly given how close it is to the trestle, and a few other bridges. There’s a gas station in Pomaria (it’s pretty much the only thing in Pomaria other than the food bank) to get stuff from if you want to.
Best season to do this hike: Outside of mosquito season – there are some seriously large state birds waiting to suck you dry on this trail in places. If you keep walking it’s not bad, but if you stop for any reason you will be drained by these buzzing vampires.
Trails to Take
You start off at the parking lot and then immediately cross that giant, obvious trestle that starts at the parking lot. Seriously, if you cannot find the start of this hike you may need to get your vision checked. The route runs across the old rail trestle across the Broad River, which is pretty spectacular, not gonna lie. The rest of the hike will not be as exciting. You enter Peak and walk along the rail line next to the main town, where a few old warehouse buildings still exist along the line. There’s also a sign talking about the country doctor that used to walk across this trestle to see patients when it was still a trestle. I don’t do heights, but I guess this guy did.
From here you keep following the rail line as it leaves Peak and heads out to the crossing of Crim’s Creek where you will find a roadside park that you’ll cross in the air on another old and really cool trestle. The rail trail runs under the road here, which is nice as you don’t have to cross through traffic. The roadside park also boasts a line of red spider lilies in the fall – signs of a no-longer extant homesite that was probably populated by some hard of hearing people given that the train would have been nearly crossing right over their house.
From here you just keep going, through a mix of woods, fields, creeks, and over a variety of different trestle types. Keep an eye out for the old mileage markers left over from the rail line telling you how far you are from the nearest large town, the Palmetto Trail campsite areas, and when it’s flooded, the swamp, which can be home to some very large turtles. The hike ends at Pomaria, where you can stop to view the local nuclear plant sign that basically says if you hear a siren you’re dead. The downtown of Pomaria already looks like the set of a nuclear fallout film from the 1950s – the shops are all closed down and the buildings are frozen in time, including a small gas station pump, a laundromat with a cool old Coca-cola sign, and what was probably a general store. The secondary businesses that came in seem to have died as well, as the fogged over windows with old brochure stands attest. The old jail lockups (2 cells) lie in a small brick building covered in weeds. I have no idea who owns these properties, but it really feels like a place ripe for redevelopment and where a lot of the old (and like cool old) features are still intact.
Once you’re done wandering around, it’s time to turn around and hike back.
Main trestle over the Broad RiverOld warehouse in Peak next to rail lineSecond trestle over roadside park with spider lilies from old homesite belowRailroad mileage marker (usually these are from the nearest large town)Wildflower on trailCamping sites for Palmetto Trail through hikersOld stores in PomariaFavorite old store front in Pomaria with gas pump. Looks like it hasn’t changed since the 1930s.
In sum: Downtown Pomaria would be even cooler with a giant ant statue so it would feel like a 1950s B movie!
While most people visit Turtleback and Rainbow Falls on the main trail in Gorges State Park, for something a bit more off the beaten path try the unmarked trail that goes down to the less heavily trafficked Stairway Falls.
Is it goat approve? No, so very, very no. High traffic, lots of park rangers, general sense you’d be instagrammed and tick tocked to death if you went down here with a goat.
How you get there: COME EARLY and park at 35.08902, -82.95181. This parking lot fills up fast because Gorges State Park is sort of a show piece – it attracts multiple boyscout troops and school groups even on the weekends on the same day. If you don’t get here early enough you can park at the gravel lot just beyond located at 35.08931, -82.95010 and hike past Raymond Fisher Pond and the no longer extant Raymond Fisher Campground (it’s apparently been bulldozed for parking). This route is 3.5 miles out and back with mostly uphill terrain.
Time for the hike: 2.36 miles total out and back from the main parking area. It’s almost exclusively downhill on the way in and almost exclusively up hill on the way out.
Best season to hike: Any time, but realize this is an insanely popular trail, especially for large groups – if you are seeking solitude this park is probably never going to work for you, but you’ll get more solitude in non-peak seasons and weather.
Trails to Take
You start off at the parking lot and enter the trail system via a super big trail head with a bunch of signboard with interesting information and picnic tables/rocks people hang out at while waiting for the rest of their 50 person family reunion to finish the hike to Turtleback Falls. You’ll go down this trail and keep to the wide, eroded or graveled trail surface. Seriously a big pickup truck could about drive down this thing it’s so wide.
You’ll keep going down hill till you reach a corner at 35.08743, -82.95711. The unmarked trail to Stairway Falls is to your left, looking a bit like a drainage ditch and running out through a stand of mountain laurel. You descend on this trail, which is basically a pig trail down through the trees, till you reach a level flat spot and an old campsite. The first tier of Stairway Falls lies in front of you. If you want to go all the way to the base, you’ll follow the pig trail that goes off through the woods along the edge of the ridge, and it will end in about another 0.25 miles at the base of the rock cascade at a bend in the river, but seriously the first stop is the best view in my opinion unless the river’s at flood stage.
Horsepasture River is exceedingly popular for swimmingFirst cascade of Stairway FallsRaymond Fisher Pond for those who have to park in the gravel lot and come the back way
Seven Devils, NC is apparently named after the sound the wind makes in the winter in the area – it howls like seven devils. I did notice the road up to these falls is marked as requiring chains or snow tires or you get fined, which is something I haven’t seen since I lived in upstate NY for a few years. I guess once you get to your condo or cabin up here you just don’t come down till it thaws.
In the summer this is a fun little hike with a few short loop trails to a decent small waterfall. There are numerous social trails, so you could probably get 5 or so miles out of this stop if you worked at it, but this was a hit the trail then hit Mast General Store in Valle Crucis kind of a Saturday, so you’ll get the shortest route to the falls and back to the car.
Is it goat approved? Oh my goodness the off leash dogs here. No, not worth bringing the goat too, especially for such low mileage.
How you get there: The parking lot is TINY and if you are driving a pickup truck you probably can’t get into it. It holds about 7 cars and 1 motorcycle and they really should sign it as “compact cars only”. We had a pickup truck try to get in and he almost got stuck in the entry way. The parking lot is paved, developed, and it has fencing along it and along the road to prevent said pickup trucks from trying to park on the road edge. Since most people come and stay for a while the parking area doesn’t have high turnover, and for those in camper vans, RVs, or anyone pulling a trailer the road up is going to be hard or impossible and forget about parking here (or basically skip this all together).
Time for the hike: For a direct out and back to the falls you’re looking at 0.9 miles out and back. It is rated as strenous and you will be going down all the way on the way in and back up all the way on the way out. There are benches and various other stopping points along the way.
Best season to do this hike: Any time, but be mindful that the parking lot fills up at 8 am sharp on weekends in the summer and that whole thing about “bring your snow tires or chains” if you want to come in winter. Also realize that typically snow tires are not required in NC and if you get pulled driving on snow tires or chains outside of this area because they damage asphalt you could get ticketed. So winter is going to be a pain in the ass time to come.
Trails to Take
You start at the trailhead, which has a signboard with the map. You descend below the parking lot, and at the junction with the various unmarked trials, go downhill, then turn immediately left onto a trail running along the hillside with a mild descent. This trail comes up to a creek, which you cross and walk up to a bench on the far side. At the bench, go right and descend. You’re now on the lower leg of the blue blaze trail, and you can take a short side trail to a wooden bench made of a piece of railroad tie stuck in some rocks if desired. When you come up to the next junction go downhill on the orange trail, and you’ll descend to the falls if at the junction after that you hang right. The trail comes up and along near a wooden viewing platform, which you can walk down to to see the falls.
You can walk through the viewing platform and on more of the orange trail to see the water, then loop back up hill past an old picnic spot with some stacked stone that might be something older than a picnic area, and then back up hill the way you came to the car.
Filmy angelicaFalls areaYellow jewelweedOrange trail going off along the creekRockwall at picnic spot – not sure if they built it during the trail or if it’s something older, like the remains of a still
Cedar Rock Mountain isn’t exactly the most challenging pluton dome in Pisgah National Forest, but it may be the most annoying chuck of erosion exposed magma intrusion I’ve every tried to summit. For starters from March to the end of August each year the cliff faces are home to peregrine falcons, a protected species that limits your options for getting to the top of the rock without bothering the local wildlife. The second problem is there are 3 trails to get to the “summit”. The western trail, as I found out last time, doesn’t go to the summit, but to the base of those off limits cliff faces. The ridge line trail coming from the south I think I’ve found the end of…but I never found where it came in at the summit, so it remains a mystery. However, after much trial and error and embarrassing bushwhacking I did finally summit from the eastern side of the mountain. This is that story 🙂
Is it goat approved? It was very goatable. He enjoyed the rock faces immensely.
How you get there: There’s about a 4 car parking pull off located at 35.24971, -82.82174. There’s a forest service gate blocking a road next to the very obvious pull off. The road in is in great shape, but you’ll need to zoom in on Google to realize that the forest service road actually does run up here from Hwy 64 to access the parking lot. However, you can’t come from the Daniel Ridge Parking area/the fish hatchery side of Pisgah because the cross over road is closed to car traffic.
Time for the hike: 6.58 miles to ascend the mountain and come back.
Best season to do this hike: Winter will make the ascent trail a heck of a lot more visible, and you’re outside peregrine breeding season.
Trails to Take
This is a social trail quagmire – the only blazed trails are Art Loeb (white blaze) and Butter Gap Trail (red blaze). Everything else is a social or unofficial trail – budget some extra time for orienteering because there are a lot of these social trails around here.
The hike starts off on a forest service road that is gated at the parking area. Walk past the gate and go up the road. Ignore all foot paths leading off this road, and stay on the gravel. A big “road” will come off to the left and drop down below the grade you are hiking. Just beyond this a very old forest service gate composed of two wooden supports and a metal pipe that sits open and the road continues. The road eventually comes up and dead ends at the crossing with Art Loeb Trail at 35.252622,-82.815124. To your right is the Art Loeb Trail and a roadbed heading out parallel to the Art Loeb Trail. To the left the Art Loeb heads off. You want to take a right. The roadbed is an easier walk than Art Loeb and it goes the same place, so seriously, just walk the road bed.
The roadbed/Art Loeb brings you up to a big intersection. This intersection has 5 routes entering it. There’s your route (the road bed), to the right of that is the Art Loeb Trail, to the right of that is an old road bed that some people have camped on if you walk around the corner, beside that is the Art Loeb trail going down to the trail shelter, then another foot trail that has a sign indicating you shouldn’t go that way because of peregrine falcons nesting on the cliffs that trail runs up to the base of, then to the right of that is a heavily washed trail going straight up through rhododendrons, and right of that is Butter Gap Trail. You want to take the trail going down to the trail shelter. You’ll know you’re going the right way because very quickly after you start you’ll get to the trail shelter.
The shelter is called Butter Gap Shelter, a substantial wooden shelter with significant camping presence around it. While there’s a creek here I did not see a privy like you usually find on the Appalachian Trail, so maybe walk a ways past the shelter to filter some more water – there’s ample water presence shortly after you leave the shelter area on the Art Loeb that’s probably a lot cleaner than a popular camping location with no marked privy.
The trail continues through dark rhododendron, and then into more open forest created by a past tree fall, tornado, or the die back of hemlocks, hard to tell which. What I still think is the ridge south ascent trail up to Cedar Mountain comes off Art Loeb at 35.248436,-82.800851 among a small stand of rhododendron, heading up the ridge as a moderately visible, unblazed trail. From here if you continue on Art Loeb the route is continuously uphill, but not extremely so. You’ll come up to a large rock face, a series of camp sites. Beware trails going up towards the rock face at campsites, apparently this is where people tend to defecate to stay away from the creek flowing along the trail. It’s a bit gross.
The east ascent trail for Cedar Rock is located at 35.259149,-82.796231. There’s a large tree with a double white blaze on it at the intersection of this trail and Art Loeb. The trail is visible, but it’s not heavily trafficked and in the summer as you approach the summit it is badly overgrown with bushes. As most people don’t come up here in the summer the bushes grow over the otherwise pretty obvious foot trail to the point of covering it over and rendering it hard to see unless you lean down and look beneath the leaves.
There is no blaze, and you’ll start by winding out through boring woods moderately uphill, and progress to very small rock faces and hiking up through mountain laurel on a steep incline, and then finally end up at the summit on almost level ground walking among waist high bushes. Once you reach the summit you’ll be in open forest completely covered by those bushes. Keep an eye out for small, hard to see side trails to visit a southern facing rock face, and a spectacular overlook to the north west end of the summit. There are two established campsites, one on the south side, one on the western end. The summit marker of Cedar Mountain is actually visible and visitable to. It’s located in a cleared off spot at 35.257136,-82.801161 stuck in a small rock protruding from the ground. Rock climbers climb the faces during non-breeding season times, you can hear them talking when you’re walking on the summit.
Once you’ve had your fill, it’s just an almost completely down hill walk back to the car.
At the trail shelterPine sap wildflowersBase of the rock faces as you hike along Art LoebMule standing on the summit trail – almost impossible to see in summerSouthern rock facesNorthwestern rock facesWestern campsite
packgoats 