Way back in August, before the US Labor Day holiday when campgrounds across our country are filled to capacity, I met my sister at a Georgia State Park to camp for four nights. It took me two days to drive there from my home in Michigan and along the way there were, of course, barns.

It was a last minute decision where to camp when we realized we didn’t have time to drive all the way to South Dakota like we had planned. For her, driving two days to my house and then two days to SD just didn’t work.

We are determined to do a better job of planning next summer.

Anyway, she found this state park in northern Georgia, right at the Tennessee state line. In fact we weren’t far from Chattanooga. But you wouldn’t know it when you were in Cloudland Canyon State Park.

We had a great campsite, big enough for two tents, with a whole other space housing the firepit. We had a fire almost every night, toasting the obligitory marshmellow and enjoying the warmth as the evenings were just a little cool.

This park sits on the top of Stone Mountain, a high ridge, part of the Appalachian Mountains, with a wide valley that overlooked part of Tennessee. And there were plenty of hiking trails with overlooks.

The ranger at the park store where we checked in told us to do the yellow trail. It was a four mile loop that, he said, we could pick up right from our campsite. He said it had the best views of any of the trails and we’d see the two waterfalls that everyone comes to visit when they’re in the park.

Well. The first evening, though both of us had driven all day, we headed right out on the yellow trail. We figured we’d see at least one of the waterfalls and have a nice walk.

Turns out the trail was full of tree roots and we never saw any part of a river though sometimes we could hear it. After awhile it was getting dark and we decided to turn around and figure it out tomorrow.

In the morning we drove to the ‘main overlook’ which was technically closed due to hurricane damage. But we could still see the amazing view, for which the park was named. And at one end of the parking lot was a sign for the falls. So off we went.

The trail moved down, down, down into the canyon. It wasn’t smooth, there were roots and rocks and holes and some railings that had seen better days.

There were lots of stairways, curling around and around and down and further down too. We saw lots of pretty things, and as we finally got down close to the bottom of the canyone we could hear the waterfall.

The waterfall was beautiful and we stayed there quite a long time. It was well worth the walk down. (And in the back of our mind we were already contemplating the walk back up!)

Then we walked back along the path to where it joined with another trail to go to the second waterfall. Nothing easy about that walk either!

We met several people along the way down into the canyon and everyone said the same thing: “Nobody told us this trail was this strenous!” We looked at the trail map and on the back was a small paragraph that waid it was a difficult trail. But seriously this was a really difficult trail! We were glad we brought water!

Anyway, down more steps, along more cliffs, and we finally got to a deck overlooking waterfall #2. Also beautiful.

And it had a bench to sit on while we enjoyed the peaceful spot. I even ate half of the now smushed banana I had in my pocket.

After we sat there for a good long time we faced the fact that the only way to go was up. And so we started.

My quad muscles were already sore from all the stairs down. And it turns out my calf muscles were too. Going up was slow, with lots of breaks to examine interesting things in the rock walls.

Or just to sit on a landing and talk to people going down. Everyone was so encouraging. Some people had their dogs with them. I never would have asked Penny to walk down all those stairs, which were made out of grating. I think they said there were over 600 steps.

Just think how uncomfortable that would be on their feet. And if they decided they weren’t going to go back up, then what? Are you going to carry your dog up 600 steps?

There was a couple with a very young girl too, on their way up when we were going down. She was already whining and they were negotiating how far she’d have to climb up before they’d carry her for awhile.

Nope, I would not advise bringing any aged children down into that canyon. No dogs, no kids, there should have been a sign at the top!

Anyway, we slowly climbed back up to the top, resting when we wanted to, stopping for interesting things, even stopping for uninteresting things. Just stopping.

And it turned out it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, though I was really glad to finish. At the top was a young couple, she clearly very pregnant, just starting down. We showed her pictures of the rock strewn trail, the seemingly endless miles of stairs. She smiled and said she thought she could do it even though she was 7 or 8 months along.

We told her the first waterfall was prettier than the 2nd and if she didn’t go to the second she wouldn’t be missing much. We told her it would be ok to decide to turn around, the trail was beautiful and she’d still have fun.

I bet they went all the way to the first fall, but I hope she turned around there. It was already afternoon and I sure wouldn’t want to do that trail with fading light.

We were glad we did it, but neither of us suggested doing any more trail hiking the next two days!

We did do a little exploring in the surrounding area the next few days but those pictures will have to wait for another post.