budget,  travel

Tallulah Gorge

July 24, 2019 /

Last week, we visited a friend of mine and combined our visit with a hike at Tallulah Gorge. The gorge is about an hour from her house (and would have been 3 hours from mine) so we spent the night there before going to the gorge.

We first spent a few minutes in the visitor center where there were some displays with taxidermed animals that are local to the area. We received a map from one of the rangers with directions to the different overlooks to see the fall and decided to walk the loop from the North rim across the suspension bridge to the South rim then across the dam and back to the visitor’s center. We were told to make sure to have enough water (we had a couple bottles per person) and were informed that there were a couple water filling stations on the trail. I made sure all of my children wore hats and we applied sunscreen before starting.

Most of the hike was shaded but I was surprised at how much we were sweating even though it was only in the 80s. That is probably because of all the steps we walked down then up. It is 310 steps down to the suspension bridge, then a little over 240 down to the floor of the gorge then you have to climb those steps back up and add 347 steps/stairs to the south rim.

There was a lot of complaining involved from the children with climbing those stairs but there were enough benches and little platforms to take a breath. The view at the bottom of the gorge of the waterfall was spectacular!

Thankfully after all of the stairs, the hike or walk was much less streneous and we were able to observe the dam from under the overpass we had just crossed as well as from another viewpoint.

It was neat to see the bridge from another view point and it actually looks more impressive from afar. Both my friend and I were surprised that the gorge was as narrow as it was as pictures of the bridge look much longer on the website.

We saw a few mushrooms on the trail back but otherwise did not observe much in the way of wildlife probably because of the heat and time of the day.

Once we arrived back at the welcome center the children all said they could do the hike another 5 times which was really funny after listening to their complaints when they were walking up the steps. My youngest enjoyed his ride on my back and I was grateful once again for my Ergo carrier.

This was a very budget friendly outing as we only had to pay the $5 per car fee to enter the park and pay for gas/mileage. It was also a nice way to enjoy time with friends and enjoy nature.

I will leave you with a cute little face, my youngest!

Photo credits for the last 3 pictures go to my friend, Shana!

A bientôt!

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