Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Georgia Travelog #17
Back in Dawsonville - Friday, 11 Apr 2025, 9pm

We've just gotten back to Dawsonville, our home base in northern Georgia for two days. Today was a full day of going out an about, driving around the southern Appalachian Mountains to visit waterfalls. We saw a number of waterfalls today... and had a lot of water fall on us— as rain.

If you're reading these blogs in chronological order of me posting them, you'll see that I've skipped over several. That's because I want not to fall too far behind on blogging about this trip. I figure I'll post at least 3 detailed blogs with photos of places we visited today. For now here's a wrap-up.

We started the day by driving to Cane Creek Falls outside Dahlonega, GA. Well, actually, we started the day by getting a bit of breakfast at the gas station convenience store across the highway from our hotel. Then we drove out to Dahlonega.

We didn't know it in advance but Dahlonega is called Gold City. "Gold rush" in the US is often associated with California (1849) or maybe Alaska (1896), but the first gold rush in the US happened in 1828 when gold was discovered here. Settlers and the government used it mostly as an excuse to push out the Cherokee people who lived here. 😒

Cane Creek Falls was an easy 1/4 mile walk each way. It's on the grounds of a religious retreat center. We wisely called ahead to make sure it's open to the public today. It is/was... but only until 3pm. So it's good we called because our initial plan was to hike this last during the day.

Next we drove out to the Three Forks trailhead. It was a long drive on Forest Service roads. I think we did 12 miles on dirt and gravel roads just to get there... and it started to drizzle as we did. I was glad we had a crossover with AWD as our rental car (though I've done worse terrain with a front-drive sedan).

At Three Forks we hoisted on our packs for a 1 mile trek each eay to Long Creek Falls. Moments after we started hiking it began pouring rain. We were prepared for it with our rain jackets as it had been drizzling already. At the falls we chatted with members of a church youth group on an overnight backpacking trip. Last night while we watched thunder, lighting, hail, and rain from the comfort of our hotel room they were huddled together in a shelter atop Hawk Mountain!

Back at the car after a wet hike we draped our jackets over the backs of our seats to help them dry and drove back toward civilization. "Civilization" was, in this case, anywhere with a paved road.

Our plan for what next had been Desoto Falls but it was still pouring rain when we got there. We decided instead to go on to our next stop and try back at Desoto afterward. That brought us to the town of Helen, where Hawk wanted to visit a rock shop. Helen turns out to be a German/Swiss themed little town in foothill country. Some would say "charming"; I say tourist trap.

After a fruitless foray in Helen we drove back to Desoto Falls. The rain had abated! And, thanks to the day's mostly shitty weather, the falls were almost deserted. And Desoto was a two-fer; there were two sets of falls in opposite directions on the trail. We visited both.

The rain was still holding off as we rolled back into town near sunset. On the drive back we debated where to eat dinner. I wanted something meaty, Hawk didn't, and we both wanted fast. We landed on a locally run burgers-and-shakes restaurant named, appropriately enough, Burgers and Shakes. I got a burger, Hawk got a veggie sandwich, and nobody got a shake. Instead we went to Culver's for ice cream. Yes, Culver's is a slice of Wisconsin down here in Georgia!

Now we're back at the room, 160 miles after we left. I've showered to help wind down for the night, and maybe we'll get to bed by 10pm. Tomorrow will be another day of driving and waterfalls— and hopefully no rain!