HIKING AT TALLULAH FALLS

We spent Sunday afternoon hiking at Tallulah Falls within the Tallulah Gorge State Park. Being totally out of shape we only got to 5 of the 10 overlooks at Jane Hurt Yarn Interpretive Center. It was a great day, sunshine, 70's. Perfect day to see the falls and gorge.

The gorge is 820 ft across and 1200 feet deep. In the early 1920's the Georgia Power Company established a series of hydroelectric dams and diverted water from the falls. At the same time Lake Rabun and Lake Burton were created along with a few other recreational areas. A few times a year the flood gates are opened and the floor of the gorge allowed to fill for white water rafting. One of those times is late April so we were lucky enough to see the falls and gorge at the perfect time with the floor flooded.

You can go all the way to the floor of the gorge normally.....perhaps when we are in better shape and the flood gates are closed.

There is an area with a suspension bridge that we did not hike to this time but will at some point we are sure. We are sure we will hike there....not sure we will cross the bridge. Since Judy can barely bring herself to stand near the rail and take the posted photos, most likely she will not be crossing but taking photos of Steve as he crosses. In order to get there you go a series of steep metal stairs to a suspension bridge swaying 80 feet above the water rock floor. You can get to the floor by descending the 400 steps to get to the bridge and then another 200 to get to the bottom of the gorge....and what goes down, must come up so we would walk up the 600 steps back to the top. We think there are something like a total of 12oo steps in all to get to the bottom. We walked a few hundred is all yesterday.

One of the photos shows an iron contraption that held the steel wire for Karl Wallenda to make his walk across the gorge in 1970. At the part he walked the gorge is 700 feet across and 1200 feet deep. It took him just 18 minutes to cross and they have photos of him doing hand stands mid way. Eight years later is when he fell to his death in Puerto Rico while crossing between two hotels on a similar tight wire.

We will chose another place next week to explore.