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A Fall in The Canyon


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Much Like DaveInTn we headed out for Fall Break last weekend as our kids had Monday and Tuesday off from school.

We packed up on Friday night and left out early Saturday Morning. The drive from Nashville to Cloudland Canyon State Park in GA is along the same route to Disney for us. Down I-24 and across Monteagle Mountain. While some might not think it is much of a Mountain, the runaway ramps always make me think there must be something to worry about.

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We arrived mid morning and began to set up.

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Cloudland Canyon has two campgrounds, one on the East rim where the bulk of the activity in park takes place and one on the West rim. Most people suggest the West Rim (See Carol's post of other campgrounds).

So naturally we got the East campground, as we arrived on Saturday instead of Friday. We were camping with two other families and we arrived first and checked us all in so we could get three sites close together.

We got three great sites, we were in number 49.

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These sites had a lot of room for the kids to play as there was good green space and extra pavement for playing 4 square and riding rip sticks. We didn't have to worry about them getting in the way of cars thanks to the extra space.

Our friends arrived within 20 minutes of us and we all set up.

The kids created their own "occupy Cloudland Canyon" area by setting up their hammocks. These pictures don't do it justice as they had 6 hammocks between 5 trees and had a great hangout. They were goofing off hanging their hammocks from the same set of straps. Those straps hold 400lbs they weren't in any danger of exceeding the capacity. If the adults got in that would be another story...

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If you have never tried an ENO hammock you should, they are amazingly comfortable and easy to set up.

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We hung out at the campground for a while and then took a walk down to the Nature Center on the rim of canyon. Some great pics of the area in the next post.

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Looks beautiful!

Just wait, you aint seen nothin' yet!

It looks like a beautiful place. love the hammocks too. I'll have to look up the ENO. Ours isn't that easy to set up but yes they are very comfortable! :pc: looking forwaed to more.

Thanks for reading, more is coming.

Love the hammock pics. Place looks like it is gorgeous.

I have never seen anything occupy 7 kids from 1st-8th grade the way these hammocks did. They had a blast.

The kids are a riot! Love the tree shots!!!!

If we mkae it up to the foothills, I think it will be to late for the fall foilage. But hopning to enjoy some Ga mtns before Christmas.

As you will see as the days went on the foliage became amazing! It was the perfect time to visit.

I was hoping you would start a trip report. Your friends have the same trailer as us!

Dave, your TR post got me going. When I saw yours at DC I think I told INC our friends had the same camper. They have three kids and usually a tag along and the bunks upfront. He is an accountant like you. You guys must think alike.

Yay, another fall trip---my favorite! Looks beautiful there!

Just keep reading you will see some great fall pixs.

NIce. I was up at Cloudland two Sundays ago. They have some new mtn bike trails on some adjacent land that is now state park land. Its called "5 points". It is very nice.

We saw those on the map but since only the kids had bikes we decided to leave it till next time when the adults can ride along too. Just so much to do and see at this park.

Looks great, love the Moe Larry & Curly hamock set up.

They definitely act like Larry, Moe, and Curly that's for sure!

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I don't want to sound like a spokesperson for the GA State Park System, but this was one of my favorite parks of all time. The place was well kept, the bathhouses were very clean, the sites were big and level and had nice grills. You will see as this trip report unfolds the views are breathtaking, the trails are well maintained and there is a lot to do at this park. The weather was perfect, Sunny and mid 70's during the day and low 40's at night to boot.

After setting up and eating lunch we thought we would walk down to the interpretive center.

Here is a picture of the path leading from the East Rim campground down to the main area of the park.

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On the map below the black arrow is where the picture above is roughly taken, the Red Arrow is the Interpretive Center, and the red stars are where most of the pictures in this post are taken.

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Below are some pictures from the side of the Canyon, looking down the Canyon or across to the West Rim.

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That is all for this day as we went back to the campground made a fire, ate a dinner of chicken quesadillas and played cards till bed time. We wanted to hit the big hike to the bottom of the Canyon tomorrow so we turned in fairly early. I will warn you there are beautiful waterfalls, but there are also 1200 steps!!! Tomorrow we hike and do a little GeoCaching.

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Wow, what a beautiful place to camp. This is going on my list, for sure, as is an ENO hammock.

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Quesadillas....good!

1200 steps.....hmmmm.

Well it is 600 down and 600 up, the down was easy the back up not so much. However it wasn't that bad as there were plenty of stopping places.

Beautiful pictures!

I'm glad that "A fall in the canyon" was the season and not someone who got too close to the edge. ???

It is a play on words as there were Water Falls, Fall Weather, and yes a few falls because the rocks were slippery and few kids found the water. I too fell while taking a ride on the ripstik.

Wow! Awesome views. I need to check out where this place is compared to Hyawassee, GA. :clint:

Quesadillas? Never thought of those camping, but that woudl be easy on a grill... :banghead:

My wife cooked the chicken in the crockpot the day before we left and then used it in the tortillas and put them on the griddle. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.

The park is in the Northwest corner. It is on the western edge of Lookout Mountain. If you wanted to go into Chattanooga it would be easy to do.

Wow, what a beautiful place to camp. This is going on my list, for sure, as is an ENO hammock.

Keep looking, the scenery gets better. I highly recommend the hammocks and the Atlas Straps make them a snap to hang about anywhere. Thanks for reading.

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Sunday morning we had a lazy and cool morning with everyone eating breakfast as they woke up. We had a breakfast that was a caserole in the crockpot of eggs, hasbrowns, sausage, cheese, and I put bacon on mine too.

The time came where we were all fed and we needed to make it down to the overlook to begin our march into the Canyon. We also wanted to see if we could find the GeoCache the park had set up. There is one in every GA State Park.

There are lot of pictures here and I will try to put them in the order I took them so you can see how our trek progressed. The first leg of the trek took us to one of three waterfalls. We started by the Interpretive Center at the East Rim where the trailhead begins. It was easy to get to and didn't involve too many stairs.

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These are my two boys. I try not to put pictures of the kids or adults faces on the board if I can help it. If I don't you know you and you are in my picture, oh well.

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I tried to give my best scared face about the heart condition sign, but my "heart" just wasn't in it becuase I wasn't scared and I just look silly.

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Here we continue down to the first waterfall..

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You can see the sign to the left of my family we had .3 miles to go to the first falls from this point.

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And this one is a good one to end on, I will stop here with the first and easiest to reach waterfall in the background.

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Wow! This looks like a wonderful place to camp and hike. I'm loving your pictures. Seeing all these pictures and reports of the mountains makes me wish we loved further north so we could enjoy them more regularly.

Great job and can't wait for more.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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Love the fall foliage photos. Looks like a nice campground. My son and many of the boys in his scout troop have Enos. They like to stack them too. He sleeps in his all night and says its comfortable. About 24 years ago my husband drove a U-Haul over Monteagle while I followed in the car. It is quite a mountain.

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