“Huh.” That’s all I had to say as I reached the namesake and terminus of the Raven Cliff Falls Trail. Huh is not exactly a ringing endorsement.
It had been a good trail. In some respects it had been a really good trail. I enjoy good creek walks in the mountains, and much of the Raven Cliff Falls Trail had followed in decent proximity to the creek flowing from the namesake falls. But as humans we are biologically conditioned to judge things based on endings. We place an unbalanced weight on finales. It doesn’t matter how good things were leading up to it. A TV show can deliver deliver eight seasons of captivating, acclaimed programming, and then become subject of derision and ridicule over a lackluster final episode. The New England Patriots can go 18-0 leading up to the Super Bowl and everyone will still think its hilarious when they lose the last game of the year. To Eli freaking Manning. We expect endings and signature moments to help make sense of this cold, cruel world.
I was left in inner turmoil as I sat on the rocks among what I can only imagine we should call Raven Cliff. How was I supposed to say that the Raven Cliff Falls Trail was a really good trail even if I was unmoved by its main attraction and finale? I would be an outcast, ostracized, treated with the same suspicion that most of America treats people who actually like the New England Patriots with. Should I try to pretend like it never happened? Should I just pretend like I was impressed by Raven Cliff Falls, therefore it would make sense for me to like the rest of the trail?
No, I could not live a lie. I once had to tell my hardcore heavy metal friends that I actually liked Norah Jones music. If I could do that, I could do anything. So I can be honest with the world and admit that I liked the Raven Cliff Falls Trail even if I don’t care for the namesake fall. Let’s look at what led me here, and I mean that in the story sense, not my own feet.
It had been a good day in north Georgia’s Chattahoochee National Forest. I had started the evening with a quiet, peaceful visit, to colorful High Shoals Falls, before having a visit to Anna Ruby Falls which was anything but quiet but which contained absolutely spectacular beauty. Anna Ruby was so chock full of color that I had a hard time pulling myself away, but the centerpiece of my entire day was supposed to be the Raven Cliff Falls Trail. In fact, my whole trip up to north Georgia was centered around doing Raven Cliff Falls as my one “must do” hike that trip (presumably I envisioned a much better reaction than “huh” to the signature fall. Maybe something a little stronger like “neato”, or if its really great, the much vaunted “neato speedo” designation). The weather couldn’t have been more ideal for a waterfall hike that afternoon, so even though every corner of Anna Ruby Falls was covered in fall color I would have felt absolutely stupid to not do my “must-do” trail when the weather was ripe. Besides, both Anna Ruby Falls and Raven Cliff Falls were in the same general area, both lying just outside opposite sides of Helen, GA. Because apparently I still don’t understand mountains, I thought Raven Cliff would deliver the same color. I found, like the disappointing finale, the color wasn’t one of Raven Cliff’s enchantments, but there was a lot this trail did offer.
I thought the weather was perfect as I pulled into across the rustic one lane bridge into the unpaved but sizeable parking area. Most people wouldn’t agree with my assessment. It was cold, grey, and a little windy. Though it couldn’t have even been three’o’clock in the afternoon, the overcast sky already made it seemed like it was getting dark, the time change having occurred the day before. There was an almost ominous feel in the air, one that brought me just the slightest doubt before starting the moderate length trail on my own without much light to the day, but I knew I would have ample time to get back and forth along the trail, and maybe even visit nearby Dukes Creek Falls, a roughly two mile excursion almost just around the corner. I would keep this in mind. The parking area was unpaved, but it did offer a naturally composting restroom. I thought it would be a good idea to stop at it before starting the trail, but this seemed like less of a good idea when the horrid smell forced me to hold my breath for the duration. At least that gave me incentive not to waste time before getting on the trail.
I felt a little twinge of excitement as I hopped on that narrow path disappearing into the wood which marked the beginning of the Raven Cliff Falls Trail. At five and a half miles this was to be the longest trail I would do on my four day Appalachian excursion. I’m well accustomed to doing longer trails, even by myself, should a good one present itself, but on this trip I didn’t find any one trail that seemed to offer the variety on that length of path which would make it worth the time investment and loss of flexibility that would entail. Seeking out fall color and photographic highlights, I thought it would be more worthwhile to maintain freedom of movement doing a series of short to medium hikes at good photo spots, and before the trip started north Georgia had a wealth of these spots I had still yet to visit. Embarking upon my longest trek of the trip, I had great anticipation of what I would see over this longer course. It’s that anticipation and the need to quench it that makes one a hiker.
The trail quickly made way up a small ridgeline, utilizing a set of wooden steps laid into the clay, before descending along the other side. Though the trail begins with a short uphill, overall the trail features relatively minor elevation gain over its journey, with practically no steep or difficult climbs throughout its course. It does gain nearly 600 feet throughout its course, but when spread over two and a half miles this climb is negligible. For the most part, footing was rarely an issue. Though it had its share of roots and a couple narrow passages along drop offs, it was nothing to cause a hiker undue concern, and many footbridges and steps throughout the course of this developed national forest trail helped one navigate what otherwise would have been obstacles. As the trail dips back down from its initial uphill, the creek comes back into sight, first bending away from the trail before coming in again from the right. The trail crosses the creek on the first of many bridges along this trail. From this point on the trial rarely loses sight of the Dodd Creek, following it uphill to eventually reach the namesake falls.
Normally I have a memory for impeccable details, and I can usually recount trails fairly well. This trail, on the other hand, is somewhat of a blur to me. Normally one remembers hikes based on the standout moments one encounters. Raven Cliff manages to have less of these than normal, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The truth was, almost every stretch of Raven Cliff Falls was consistently good. There were few moments that felt like a slog because there wasn’t something worthwhile within view. Since the highlights weren’t set apart by lesser moments they tend to get blurred, especially since the scenic appeal consistently came from the creek. But, there weren’t a huge amount of highlights that greatly separated themselves from what I had seen before. My memory is typically assisted along trails like this in areas where I stop to take long exposures. For a trail with as much creek mileage as this one had, I didn’t stop as frequently as one might think. For one, there were many times when the creek was in view but not accessible to setup a tripod. Two, I was hoping to do roughly seven miles of hiking in the last few hours of a cloudy fall day, so I was looking for select spots along the creek that really set themselves apart. The scenes were consistently nice, but few were significantly better than what had come before.
I didn’t entirely avoid setting up tripod shots, of course. Raven Cliff features several smaller, unheralded cascades on the way to its namesake fall, and the first comes up on the left not far along the trail. It is easy to stop from the trail but more difficult to get in frame, as the trail skirts by it along a moderately steep bluff with a faintest possibility to find a moderately flat purchase for a tripod a few feet down. I jumped at this opportunity and tried to balance and hold my breath as the tripod narrowly clung to the uneven surface above the small fall. My setup was close to the water, providing extra excitement with my setup, and I had to squeeze every last millimeter out of my wide angle lens. 18mm had seemed sufficient when I first made the jump to full frame and got the widest lens I could obtain cheaply, but there are moments when I lament not having my old cropped frame D90 with a 10mm ultrawide (which owing to crop factors would be 14mm on a full frame). That extra bit of zoom is huge when one is afraid to move for fear of tumbling down an embankment into a waterfall, all with nobody there to witness it and hopefully take pictures and video to remember the moment by. In my precarious position there wasn’t ability to put the optimal filters for long exposure on the camera; I was happy to get the best frame I could and scramble back up the base unscathed.
Other falls popped up in short time along the trail, some quite impressive but few in an area which I could safely reach to photograph. I did find another challenging frame which demanded a risky but manageable scramble to get. This cascade was of a curving variety, and I cursed that 18mm just wasn’t wide enough to get the real contours of this one from where I could actually setup.
Eventually the steep bluff to the left of the creek disappears as the creek pulls even to the trail, providing much closer access to this peaceful mountain waterway. In the areas where the creek wasn’t enduring one of its multiple waterfalls or cascades it maintained a moderately level path without large, significant rapids. I enjoyed the sights and sounds of the constant flow of this stream nearby. Much of the trail was surrounded by that trademark lush southern Appalachian growth which follows creekbeds in rainy areas and tends to maintain some green year-round. Its scenic any time of year, though it unfortunately tended to keep the fall color at arms length.
Except for when I was stopped to photograph I tried to maintain a brisk pace, which was easy to do through this level area of trail. The only obstacle was the occasional root patch or muddy soil made slightly more slippery with the falling of leaves.
Numerous flat areas along the creek seemed to provide ideal camping spots, and the presence of burned out fire pits confirmed that other people shared my view. I’ve never hiked to camp, in fact I can’t really remember camping outside an established campground with drive up access, for I lack portable camping gear and would certainly have a hard time managing to carry both photo and camping gear with a bad hip. Maybe someday I’ll figure out a way. More scenes presented themselves as the trail worked its way along the creek, all of them lovely, few standing out dramatically from the rest.
After an extended duration of relatively flat trail one begins a moderate climb, with a few rocky outcroppings lining one side of the trail. Here the creek is often far to the left, with larger but harder to access cascades withing view to the eye but not really the camera.
The next section of trail was defined by frequent side streams joining Dodd Creek, most (but not all) being bridged by numerous small plank bridges along the trail. With the multitude of streams the soil was generally wet, providing the base for lush vegetation which frequently encompassed the trail. The downside to this vegetation was that it was scarcely optimal for the actual season at hand.
My favorite moment in the trail came when I approached a Y-junction of Dodd Creek and one of its larger tributaries. The rickety, uneven boardwalk was easily recognizable from trail pictures I had seen of this one on Atlanta Trails, a good resource I use when trying to scout out hikes in an unfamiliar area of Georgia.
From this notable bridge it wasn’t too far to the namesake waterfall and the end of the trail. The suddenly steep terrain and large looming rock face overhead made the approaching end evident, which is good, since most waterfalls become evident by, I don’t know…actual waterfalls. Several paths diverged over the rocks, and it wasn’t quite clear where the best views were obtained. I was just content to set my bag down, grab a snack, and chat a bit with the small crowd that had taken up places along the rocks. Having had nice creek views consistently for two and a half miles of trail, I certainly was underwhelmed by the small state of creek and flow at actual Raven Cliff Falls, which seemed less enjoyable to me than just enjoying the beauty of the creekbed once it had picked up a bit more flow downhill. I decided that I wasn’t really needing to setup to take a long exposure that didn’t really thrill me, but I didn’t realize that I hadn’t even taken a snapshot which included the fall. Even though it wasn’t hugely impressive to me, it still would have been nice to come away with my own image of the namesake.
Not realizing my folly, I began working my way steadily downhill towards the trailhead some two and a half miles away. Now knowing I didn’t get any long exposures of the waterfall, I kept an extra eye for shot opportunities on the way back that I might have missed while I was outbound, but none really presented themselves. Instead, I just got some nice snapshots from the reverse angle.
I was amazed at how quickly I made the return trip. Even repeating the trail on this out and back course, always having something interesting to look at, along with a lack of difficult terrain or elevation, meant there was never a stretch of hiking that felt laborious. I had reason to have a spring in my step too, for I knew if I finished quickly enough I would be able to fit in Dukes Creek Falls right around the corner before it got too dark. Getting that stop in today after having already done High Shoals Falls, Anna Ruby Falls, and Raven Cliff Falls would be quite the coup, as I wouldn’t feel the need to return this way to get in Dukes Creek, and would have freedom of movement the next morning before I had to drive home to Central Florida.
It was a bit after 4:30 that I reached Garth, my Rav4 on the parking area, and I hurriedly tossed my gear into the car before making the roughly 5 minute drive to the parking area for Dukes Creek Falls. I thought I remembered that the path to Dukes Creek was none too difficult, but I wasn’t sure, and I had scant time to refresh myself. All I knew for sure was that the path out to the falls couldn’t have been more than 1.2 miles, a distance I was comfortable with even this late in the day. I grabbed my head lamp, imagining that for once I might have to use it for its intended purpose of hiking in the dark, rather than just reading in a tent. Thankful to have even the faintest cell reception, which I scarcely had for much of the Raven Cliff Falls Trail, I shot off a quick text to my wife to let her know the gameplan before locating the trailhead and beginning the circuitous path to Dukes Creek Falls.
Even had Dukes Creek Falls been a standard surface, rustic path, I probably would have managed fine on time, but at any rate I had to worry none about that, as the trail featured a straight path whose combination of paved, boardwalk, and hard packed surfaces was easier to walk than some sidewalks I’ve been on. The foliage was nice, often featuring distinct bursts of yellow. Unfortunately, the almost invariably straight trail, which switchbacks a select few times as it descends some distance go from ridgeline to creek level, lacked a “wild” character to make the woods really pop, but there were still frequent opportunities to capture frames along the pathway.
Not far from the beginning of the trail is a nice section of boardwalk. This boardwalk worked its way through a cocoon of various shades, and at one point the view opened up to provide a quick tease view of the waterfall, which was MUCH higher than I imagined. As I walked down the stairs at the end of the boardwalk, I was greeted by a female hiker on the return trip who was struggling to make her way back up. Knowing that I was going to consistently descend downhill and have to work my way up on the way back, I was thinking that’s what I have to look forward to. But that’s a problem for the way back up. For now, I wanted to get to a full view of that sweet looking fall.
The first switchback came after a nice stretch of hardwood, and the trail descended on a set of stairs. These stairs ended at a stretch of trail along a bluff with a creek some distance below, and the sound of rushing water overtook the quiet woods. A sign directed one towards the falls, but a trail also seemed to follow the path of the creek as well. Without much time, I couldn’t explore that creek path now, but the sound was inviting. Eventually the sounds of that creek died out but were soon replaced by the sound of the actual falls. They seemed very close, but eventually that sound eventually disappeared as the trail worked an agonizingly straight path as it slowly descended while clinging to the edge of the ridge.
The straight, nondescript path made this journey feel a lot longer than it should have (quite a contrast compared to Raven Cliff Falls), though eventually it did turn and took a more severe angle downward as the sound of the falls got close. This time, there was no turning way from the falls. I was soon walking the wet planks of a boardwalk as one waterfall absolutely towered overhead with another small but powerful waterfall off to the right.
This was a day of being surprised by the size of waterfalls. I started my mornign at High shoals Falls, where I wasn’t even aware that the fall at the end of the trail was of the large variety. Then I visited Anna Ruby Falls, where I was well familiar with the look of the falls but had no idea of sheer height of the larger tier there. The larger fall at Dukes Creek, however, was the biggest surprise of them all. The ironic thing about that fall, which is surely the most memorable of the two at this location, is that the towering fall is actually on Davis Creek as it plunges to join Dukes Creek. The small fall is the one that is actually on Dukes Creek. One wonders why the trail bears the name Dukes Creek Falls and not Davis Creek Falls, except for the fact that Davis Creek terminates at its confluence with Dukes Creek.
Though Davis Creek Falls created the much greater impression in person, I decided it would make a lot more sense to photograph Dukes Creek Falls first. Its single tier provided one concise focal point for photography while the taller fall provided a multitude of options while I wasn’t sure any of them would be good. Though my comments might seem disparaging to little Dukes Creek Falls, that’s only in relation to its much larger brother. It was an enjoyable view in person, but its powerful flow took away from some of its appear in pictures. I made quick work of a few angle of it before attempting to attack its big brother.
As I suspected, Davis Creek Falls made quite a challenge to photograph. I actually managed to get all of it in a frame, but with the sheer height and with much of it being partially obscured behind thick foliage I don’t feel this shot really “pops”. Still, one can clearly imagine how impressive a fall like this would be in person. The fall seemed to diverge into a couple channels as it got closer to Dukes Creek. I tried to zoom in on the one closest to the platform, was was able to get a full frame of it. For some reason I never seemed to satisfy myself with partial shots of falls, though many photographers don’t share the same reservation. I guess its because I like to capture places and full scenes, and I think of waterfalls as one complete thing that should be expressed in their entirety.
It hadn’t taken long at all to get down to the waterfalls at Dukes Creek, and since the boardwalk and viewing angles dictated that there were only so many shot variations I could take. Getting back to my car before things got too dark wasn’t going to be a concern, even if going uphill would be somewhat more challenging than reaching the falls. The Dukes Creek Falls Trail pays for that easy access by lacking real wild character. Of the four spots I had visited that day, Dukes Creek was easily my least favorite, and it wasn’t even close. Anna Ruby Falls was also not wild, as it featured a paved path and was rather crowded while I was there, but that paved path has bends and bridges as it follows the awesomely beautiful Smith Creek downstream of the namesake falls. Dukes Creek features a mile of trail that has a nice tree canopy but is otherwise featureless, and when combined with a boardwalk viewing platform at the end its an all too sterile experience. It’s fine when used as a bonus stop, as I did for the nearby Raven Cliff Falls, but would make a poor choice as a destination despite the immense size of Davis Creek Falls.
I found no great trouble working my way back uphill towards the parking area as light faded. I had just enough light to follow the trail along the creek which I had bypassed earlier, but light wasn’t sufficient to do any shots, nor did I find anything worthy of framing on my quick survey. As I reached the parking area I could faintly see between the trees that the sun was just now setting, providing for a colorful sky which bathed the mountains surrounding ridgelines in purple light. Ending such a good day with some purple mountains majesty was a fitting end to a very enjoyable series of exploits.
J. Parker Nature Stories 