Hickey Gap Campground

Last Friday adventure buddy and I went to a place one of the guys from work told me about. It's called Hickey Gap Campground in Crandall, Ga. It's a very small campground out in the middle of nowhere and you have to take a gravel road for about 7 miles before you reach it. Once you get to the campground, you can go down into the campground or there's a place for "day parking." It's a free campground by the way. It's a bit of a hike from the day parking down to the river and I don't recommend it after it's rained or it's still dewy, mostly because I fell and busted my butt on the hike down. But, once you reach the river it's beautiful! There are several little "rapids" and a waterfall with some shoals at the bottom. You can climb on the rocks at the falls and it has several places that would be nice swimming holes when it's not cold. Here are some of the pictures I took there:

This was just a little funny fungi that looked like a penis coming out of the ground. We have dirty minds and laughed about it for a while.

I recommend this little place, it's nice and isolated and not too bad of a hike. It's a beautiful river and it's very pretty during the fall but I bet it's even better in the summer when it's not too cold to play in the water. You can google Hickey Gap Campground to find directions. 

So it's been almost a month....

It's been almost a month since I posted anything. I know, I'm sorry -____- I suck. Lately the adventure buddy and I haven't had much time to go adventuring. Sometimes, adventure time takes a back seat to real life. We've also been working on becoming more than just adventure buddies. :D It's been a little weird considering I'm literally HALF his age but eh what are you going to do? Anyway, that's not the point of this post. Last Friday we went for a little ride and somehow found our way to Fort Mountain! (Don't ask me how because I have no idea, this is why I don't do the driving!!!) So we decided to hit up the state park and see what it had to offer. Our first stop was at the little information center/store which they called The Trading Post. They had some interesting things, mostly things dealing with bears. I wish I had been able to take a picture of some of the things they had but I didn't get to take many pictures inside. Here's what I did get:

After we finished playing around inside we hit the road to find the trails. Apparently they have two different trails to hike, one is only about a mile and the other is eight miles....we chose the mile one. This trail leads up to the overlook and the tower they have at the top. Since it's finally becoming fall in Georgia, it was a little cool on the mountain and I'm the goober that brought shorts so I shivered the entire hike up to the top. As far as adventure hikes go, this was by far our easiest one to date. When we got to the tower, they were doing some work on it and you couldn't get to it which is probably something they should have told you before you hiked all the way up there but eh whatever, I still got pictures. 

This is the tower at the top. It's supposedly a fire watch tower build by the "moon-eyed" indians. There's a whole story about that in two of the pictures a little further down. 

Adventure buddy brought a walking stick and since we couldn't go up to the tower he decided he was going to play baseball with the nuts on the ground....

                                                      The view from the overlook.

                     The story of the tower and the "moon-eyed" people that supposedly built it.

All in all it was a nice little adventure that didn't take too long. If you go on this hike, beware! There are plenty of rocks and roots to trip over on the trail and face plant. Luckily nothing like that happened to us (knock on wood! I don't want to jinx myself for our next adventure.) But if you're up for a nice little walk I highly suggest this one, especially during the fall when all the leaves are starting to change color. It was very beautiful. 

Cloudland Canyon

So, for this adventure we decided we wanted to go to Cloudland Canyon which is in Rising Fawn, Ga aka the middle of mt. nowhere! It's about an hour and a half from where we started.

As always on Fridays, we stopped for IHOP before we set out on our way. It's starting to get really cool in the mornings so it was fantastically cool when we began our little journey. I love fall weather. Anyway, once you reach the state park you have to pay $5 to park as usual at a state park. They also have a place to camp and a little pond you can fish in and even cottages. Once we parked, you can walk to the overlook and look out into the canyon and see just how far down you get to walk. But, the canyon was absolutely beautiful and seemed to go on forever! So we set out on our way and for anyone thinking about going here, you walk down what felt like a million steps. There are two falls down at the bottom, one goes really far down into the canyon and the other has less steps. We went to the one that went farther down into the canyon, but we didn't go down to where we could face the waterfall so I could take a picture. Then, we walked all the way back up and went to the other waterfall. Not many people were going to that one so we had the place all to ourselves. One thing is for sure, that was one heck of an exercise and my legs hurt for three days after so keep that in mind! Ok, picture time!!!

                   My big ol' grizzly bear found himself a cave. Such a funny grizzly bear XD

               This huge rock jutted out over a little bench where some dude was taking a break.

           And there was an awesome hornet's nest way up on the huge rock but it looked damaged.

Adventure buddy wanted to touch all the fuzzy caterpillars there were. They were all over the place and on the hand rails to where, if you didn't watch where you were putting your hand, you would touch a fuzzy caterpillar.

                                                     So many steps. Alllllll of the steps.

                                      It looked like a big foot footprint! BIG FOOT LIVES!!!!

                   Adventure buddy taking a picture of the big foot footprint. He facebooked it....

 We also found a persimmon tree and did the little seed test. If you haven't heard about this test here is how it goes: You take a persimmon seed and cut it in half (easier said than done) and on the inside there will be a shape. There are three shapes that you can find: a spoon, a fork or a knife. The spoon means that you will have a winter with a lot of snow, so much that you will have to "shovel" thus the spoon. The fork means that you will have a mild winter with just a light dusting of snow. The knife means that you will have a very cold winter "like a knife cutting through you." I do believe that this is a spoon.....fantastic.

Well that was our adventure for the week. I hope you enjoyed our pictures as much as we enjoyed taking them. I found a book on amazon earlier this week called Weird Georgia and I ordered it, it has all kinds of weird places to travel and things to do in the state of Georgia so we're going to go through it and find some things that we want to do. I also have a list of places I want to go so even though it's getting colder our adventures have just begun! So sit back and have fun with us!

Come On Get Higher!

Friday the Adventure Buddy and I went to Brasstown Bald. Up until last week I had never heard of this place but apparently it's the highest point in Georgia with an elevation of 4783'!!! Now from where we're at it was about a 2 hour drive but it is through the beautiful mountains of North Georgia so it was all good. Now, when you get there it's $5 per person instead of just $5 to park (which we thought was a rip off but whatever) and then they either have a shuttle that will take you to the top or they have a paved trail that you can walk. We decided that we were going to walk the trail because we're adventurers! It's about six tenths of a mile up the mountain which is not normally a bad walk....except this is a straight up the mountain walk. Most of this trail was crazy elevated, duh...highest point in Georgia and all. But we made it...after having to stop SEVERAL times to let the calf muscles have a break and to catch our breath. But once you get to the top there's an observation deck where you can see all the surrounding mountains and you're up above the clouds and it was so beautiful! Then they also have a little museum type thing where you can walk around and chill out before you head on back down. All in all it was a fun trip. Here are some pictures from Brasstown Bald, GA:

    This is the part of the trail that we had just walked up. There was a little bench at the top.

                        This is the trail that we still had left to climb. All I could say was ugggggh.

                                                             The observation tower.

                                                               Inside the museum.

                 Adventure buddy found some of his own kind!!! (we always call him a big ol' bear)

             There were no footprints to stand on! How are you going to tell me to stand on them?!?!

                                                     Never heard of this brand of cola.

Once we left Brasstown, we had every intention of heading back home but we saw a sign for Helen, Ga and decided to make a detour for beer and brats. Before we got there, we found this awesome little creek to play in before we continued on. I didn't take many pictures in Helen but it was Octoberfest and it was fun. We ate at the beer gardens(??) and had some yummy bratwurst and beer. All in all it was a fantastic trip!

This is at the little creek we found. 

And this is the Chattahooche river that flows through Helen, GA. ...this was the only picture I took there... -____-

Well I hoped you enjoyed our trip as much as we did! I wish I had taken more pictures in Helen but I was tired by that point (I had worked all night and we left straight from work!) On to the next adventure!!!!