Hiking Amicalola Falls State Park

We just finished up a trip to Amicalola Falls state park in Georgia. On our travels, state parks have been all over the board, in terms of natural wonder and beauty. Sometimes, state parks are just simple playgrounds for the community with basic hiking trails, while others have landscapes that’s on-par with National Parks. Amicalola Falls, falls into the latter. It’s a gorgeous park and as its name suggests, known for a stunning 729 foot cascading waterfall.

Hiking & The Amicalola Waterfall

The state park offers several ways to enjoy the beauty of the falls. We took a nice 2.1 mile loop hike (~1 – 1.5h) that starts at the parks visitor center, follows the Appalachian Approach trail alongside the falls which, took us to the upper falls overlook, then following the East Ridge trail down the backside of the mountain to return to the visitor center. This trail had about 700 feet of elevation gain up some 700 steps, and was moderately difficult, but each step was beautiful! The waterfall is spectacular and thanks to the park, there is a boardwalk that takes you right into the heart of them. Turning backwards there was a nice view of the mountains.

170 Stairs to the Falls

Amicalola falls cascade over a few hundred feet!

Appalachian Trail

Amicalola Falls is also one of the starting points for the, 2,190 mile long, Appalachian Trail. The trail officially starts at Springer Mountain, but most hikers start their trek here at Amicalola Falls and hike on the 8.5 mile Appalachian Approach Trail.

One of the popular places to start the Appalachian Trail!

From Main to Georgia, the AT trail connects most of the east coast!

Land Origins

We weren’t able to find any information about the origins of the land of the state park, but upon further research the Cherokee and Upper Creek and Apalache Native American tribes all called this part of Georgia home.