I am at Brasstown Bald Hayawasi, Georgia. And you can take the shuttle up to this spot. It's
going to be the highest point in Georgia. But we're walking up the trail. It's a paved trail.
Um, it's only, I guess, moderate or whatever because it's a steep it's a steep walk,
but it's paved, so it shouldn't be difficult at all. Just a little bit of an aerobic workout.
So, this trail is covered with rodendrrons. This is like walking through a rodendrin tunnel.
And it is steep, but it is paved, so it's easy. But it will wind you, as you can hear. I think
it's not that bad.
So, you will definitely get winded. I think it's about half mile up.
I'm just sticking at a steady pace.
Catching my second wind. And there are places for people to stop and sit and
rest. I'm going to keep plugging away. cuz this is the first hike for today.
I'm going to head to a different place after this place called Higho Falls.
It's about a 25m minute drive from here.
I think I'm nearing the end.
to the shuttle bus.
Took me about 10 minutes to walk it. That's not too bad.
All right, we made it to the top. There's a little watch tower
down. There's my car.
Just see the top of the Jeep.
A lot of haze, some clouds.
can see parts of the Appalachian Trail,
Appalachian Trail, however you want to pronounce it.
Okay, so that is that. We're going to head back down. It's a little more than
a half mile walk. We just head back downhill, hit the car, and uh head to the next trail.
I'm at the next stop for today. This is uh H Highish Falls Trail. And so
now immediately I got to pick which one I have to go down. This side or that side? Ah,
there's arrows on the signs. Duh. They're just not very clear.
Okay. 1.3 miles. So, it's about 70 degrees. We just finished Brasstown Bald, which was nice,
but a paved trail. This one is more like the normal trails we head down.
And so, there's supposed to be some really nice falls along this trail, but it's short. It's like
a mile and a half or something, I think, to get there. And that's why we chose the
uh two trails today rather than just the one.
These are both relatively short. So, onward to the falls. So, it appears that this is
going to be a lot like going to Panther Creek Falls where it's all downhill to the falls and
then it's going to be an uphill trek on the way back. doesn't look as difficult,
but we shall see. Um, brass town ball. That was quite the trek straight up. I think they
said it was a 12% grade or something. So, this doesn't look like that, but
um it is a walk back up. And the trail is filled with leaves,
so it gets a little slippery and it's pretty rocky and uh got some gnarled roots.
just like at uh Panther Creek Falls. But other than that, it's a beautiful fall day. Like I
said before, it's about 70° right now. Supposed to be a cold front moving through in the next couple
of days where it's only going to reach a high of like 50 or something, maybe even less up here in
the North Georgia mountains. But for now, it's like a beautiful fall day. where all the leaves
have changed color. I think I'm probably a a week past peak, maybe peak color here.
But uh it's perfect day. Clear blue sky. Perfect day for a hike.
I'm showing some of the gnarled roots. There were some bigger
ones just a little while back before I started hitting the record button,
but just to show you. Leaf covered. Um, but otherwise a well marked or wellworn
trail. Let's put it that way. I don't there aren't really any markings that I see so far.
um hiking without Godfrey because I went up to Brasstown Bald and there's a lot of people there
he with their dogs and and if you've watched any of the other videos, I've told you that he doesn't
do well with other dogs. So, I try to take him on hikes where he's not going to really see any
other dogs and he might not on this one. It's not that popular a trail. There were only two
cars out at the front and I'm I started hiking at about 11:30. Um, but because of Brasstown Bald,
I didn't bring them here. But we'll probably go someplace uh next week.
Got some areas of this trail that were a little bit washed out. I don't know
if you can see the rope. There's like a rope guard so you don't go down the hill.
Um, but you can see the creek far down there, but the trail got a little washed out. Maybe one of
the more recent storms that came through. I don't know. I need signs. I say I don't know a lot.
All right. So, I just passed four hikers. Maybe they're the all four people that have the car,
the two cars out in front. So hopefully I have the falls to
myself when I get there. Got a little bit of a stream crossing and a bridge.
It's a nice stream with rodendrrons on the sides.
Nice little bridge to walk across. Keep my feet dry. Although it looks like you
can get across if you wanted to. It's not It's not uh that deep right now.
Thought I would just leave you with the sounds
of the water this time instead of Godfrey barking all over the place.
Babbling brooks are always nice to hear.
This looks to be like it's going to be a fairly easy hike. You have bridges crossing
all the tiny water crossings. At least so far I I only saw two only had two water crossings. So
I'm assuming that if they have bridges to cover those that they'll pretty much cover the rest.
So I'm supposed to be coming up close to some waterfall view. I don't know if I got to turn
in here. Try to go up a little further. Let's see. I'm following the All Trails
map. See what we got here. Looks like I got to walk a little bit further. Oh, okay. I see
another path that goes down. So, we're going to head to the first set of falls to go visit.
So they have an actual viewing platform,
a beautiful waterfall to start with.
I'm going to see if I can get a little closer,
get down at the bottom a little bit without breaking my neck.
All right. So, I was able to get down to the bottom in the middle.
It's pretty deep in some of these spots. It's an absolutely stunning waterfall
as well as uh looking downream
right.
That was the first set of falls.
Now we're heading to the second one. I heard the second one is supposed to
be nicer. At least that's what the reviews said in all trails. Can't wait to find out.
So they have more areas with yellow rope. I don't I mean I don't think anybody's
going to go down that way anyway, but I guess just as a warning to shut off
certain areas. This one I can understand cuz maybe people want to think that's a trail.
But I'm surprised there aren't more people here because it's pretty well developed
trail with bridges, even stone steps. Um, so they've made this very accessible. You know,
it's definitely moderate because of the the climb back, but as far as, you know, getting anywhere,
if you take your time, shouldn't have any problem. Anybody should be able to do it.
All right, we've reached the second set of falls. There's another viewing area,
viewing platform. Hopefully, there's a way to get down there so we can get a little closer.
Oh, wow. It's so high up. Pretty incredible.
So, that's pretty short hike to get here. I think the mile and a half number is pretty accurate.
That's definitely worth it. All right, there's an e,
very easy way to get down to the bottom here. Not difficult at all.
See about getting a little bit closer. So, this is probably as close as I'm going to get.
Uh, I could go over there, but I think those rocks are going to be too slippery from algae.
So, I will stay right here where I'm at. It's close enough.
Absolutely stunning. Did I use that word enough? Let's go walk around on the rocks. So,
I moved far back. I'm actually I'm taking a video right now because I meant to actually
take a photo and I've got a system in how I take videos so I don't get lost later on when
I need to stitch this all together. So, this is a bonus video of where I'm standing right now.
This is a place where it's so short, easy to get to, and the road driving up is difficult.
you you'd probably need an SUV, but once you get to the trail head and you walk here,
it's not hard to get through. Be a perfect place to sit and eat lunch. One day I'll pack a lunch.
All right, I got to scale these logs. head back to dry ground and then
start heading back to the car. My day hikes or my day hike,
the hike for the day is done for the day.
So, we'll get back up to the trail, start heading back. Just as I described,
the walk back up is going to wind you. I don't know if I'm the only one,
but I always find going downhill harder than going uphill. It's harder on my legs
to go down than going up. I mean, going up obviously is a cardiovascular workout,
but my legs seem to be able to take that better than going down if I'm alone.
But it's pretty much going to be like this the rest of the way back. So,
we're just going to concentrate so I don't slip on some of these wet leaves.
back to the car. So, as proof that anybody can really take this hike,
most anybody is I just passed the family. Uh husband, wife,
three kids. The husband is even carrying the infant in a backpack.
You know, the kids couldn't have been older than seven,
maybe eight. I didn't take a close look, but some I think anybody should be able
to do this hike as long as you take your time, especially on the way back.
But I would do this again in the fall because this is beautiful. Maybe
a week earlier or maybe even a week later. A week earlier for peak color in the trees,
but a week later because it'll be a little bit cooler here and more of the leaves will be off
the trees. So, you'll be able to see more of the of the creek and the falls while you hike.
springtime I can imagine would be nice too because you're gonna have that cover the
overgrowth covering the trail. You're basically walking in a you know big forest understory.
I wouldn't do it in July and August. Not in Georgia.
All right. This sign means we're coming to the end.
Just the last few stairs to climb and then we're back at the car. That was a very short but very
enjoyable hike. One of the better ones. Uh one of the better short ones I've been on.
I'll try to be back here more often than the next five years like I did with Panther Creek.
But that's it. Yep. Those other two cars were
the people I passed. And this is the family that I saw down there.
That's the end of today's hike. Catch you next time.