Nate and Tanja: Georgia Appalachia

Over Spring Break (late March), we rented a cabin in Blairsville, Georgia in the Appalachian Mountains. We drove down from Maryland, and met my parents who drove up from Florida. Even though my parents were going to an adjacent state, their drive was actually longer than ours. The cabin was isolated on a bumpy dirt road with a hot tub and more than enough space for the seven of us. There were two dirt roads that are possible to use to approach the cabin, and my parents learned the hard way that one of the roads was to be avoided. Over the next week, we played a lot of games, hiked throughout the area, and visited a gold mine.

On our first full day in Georgia, we headed to Dukes Creek Falls for a beautiful 2.3 miles hike to some waterfalls. The trail was well-maintained and scenic.

Mormor is a proud treehugger. She literally hugged a whole bunch of trees.

She got the kids to join her in her appreciation of the beautiful giants throughout the week.

We walked downhill over a mile to get to the falls. The second half of the hike was walking back uphill on the same trail.

After resting at the cabin, we went to Vogel State Park, just seven minutes from the cabin for a short 1.1 mile hike around Lake Trahlyta.

Nate spent a lot of time teaching the kids how to throw skipping stones. We stopped frequently around the lake to practice.

The next day, we ventured to the highest point in all of Georgia, Brasstown Bald, reaching an elevation of 4,784 feet (1,458 meters). I loved reading the signs on the way up the mountain about the history of the very isolated settlers in the area. From the top of the mountain, four states are visible: Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. We could actually see the peak for Clingman's Dome in Tennessee where we had climbed to a similar observation tower for last year's spring break. The hike was 1.4 miles total (0.7 miles up, and the same down).

It was very chilly at the top with lots of wind.

Derek wore my hand-made Ecuadorian sweater to keep warm - I have kept it in the car for years for emergencies.

After our trip to Brasstown Bald, Karina was not feeling great. She had a fever, runny nose, some chills, etc. On Monday, while Mormor stayed home with Karina, the rest of us decided to go on a short nearby waterfall hike to Helton Creek Falls. When Google sent us on a horrible dirt road in bad condition, we weren't too happy. Then we came to a creek that we were supposed to drive through. On the map, I could see we were going to have to cross the creek a second time later on. We decided to call that hike off, and just turned around rather than cross a river and drive on a horrible road in our minivan.

I found another nearby hike for us to go on that was just off of a highway a shortish drive away. The Tesnatee Gap Trail is on the Appalachian Trail and was 1.7 miles, with a 659 ft elevation gain. The trail was full of hard core Appalachian Trail hikers who were hiking for anywhere from one week to six months, camping along the way. We spoke to a number of them and enjoyed seeing their huge backpacks.

It was a fantastic hike, very scenic, not to mention windy, and considerably more difficult of a hike than the one I had initially promised Lydia and Derek when I thought we were going to a waterfall.

One of my favorite things in Georgia was the day we spent at the Consolidated Gold Mine in Dahlonega, about 45 minutes drive away. It is a massive 120-stamp mill used to remove gold from ore, est. 1880’s. We took a tour down into the mine and learned about the various jobs of the miners. Our guide was fantastic, keeping the kids engaged in what being a miner would be like in dark shafts before electricity.