Water is poetry for me. It’s breathing. Thriving. Living. It’s escape and coming home and coming back. It’s today and yesterday and tomorrow. It’s dreaming.
Come to Hemlock Falls with my husband and me. This last May. Spring thaw. Never made it to the higher falls. Mudslides everywhere. Never quite there. Never want to be.
You’ll see.
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Sun peaking. A halo. A path. You’re here.
Water teasing. A taste. A promise. Stay here.
Impossible winking. A want. A need. Know here. (more…)
Stonewall Falls is a shy, flickering interior cascade I almost didn’t achieve. Almost… Some miracles take their time unfolding. They hide. They challenge the determined heart. Everything that could stop you bars your path, while magic lies just beyond your grasp.
“…a very easy cascade for waterfall watchers to visit while in Clayton…” says Boyd of Stonewall Falls (p. 107).
Difficulty of hike?
Easy.
Stream flow?
Medium.
Rating?
Good.
“Why not tack it onto the end of my hiking day,” I say to myself as I read.
Then again, the printed guide I’m using is a decade old, and even then it was a reprint.
If you’re local to the area and have a four wheel drive truck, I’m sure you could persuade yourself that this is an easy-to-get-to destination. Actually, this day I’m not sure at all. The park service has let things go a bit. Mostly, I suspect, because, as Boyd says, the area is a mecca for “campers and mountain bikers…” Not the pickiest lot, when it comes to the upkeep of their outdoor pleasures.
You get the idea. The dirt path I’m driving comes equipped with pot holes the size of the front of my car. Steep uphills and drops greet me, where rain and run off have made things steeper and more nerve-wracking. Nifty, not-so-little turns lead to near-blind hazards. Maybe this destination and I aren’t meant to be? (more…)
You know a few things at the beginning of a challenge.You learn a few more as you immerse yourself in the day-to-day. Like when Brian Boyd in his Waterfalls Book says, “turn at the Days Inn from Clayton,” you better hope the Days Inn is still there, but he’s serious about his landmarks ;o)
The problem with working from a 20-year-old guide book is that some things just are where they used to be. Luckily, the North Georgia Mountains is still enough of a tourist destination certain times of the year, I found my right-hand turn onto “Warwoman” Rd (you better believe I double-checked that name to make sure I wasn’t misreading it), because without the Inn to show me my way I’d have been a bird dog without a scent to track–there’s NO STREET SIGN at the intersection, because it’s a funky little fork off HWY 441 (that perhaps they added FOR the Days Inn), and you don’t really hook up with Warwoman until a few hundred yards further.
Good, I thought, as I and Warwoman got better acquainted, the first challenge was behind me on my way to Becky Branch falls. I’m now on the lookout for the Warwoman Dell Recreation Area, 2.4 miles down the road. 2.4, mind you. And I was tracking that mileage carefully, given that the directions were so exact. Turns out mileage is something Mr. Boyd played a bit more fast and loose with. That .4 can come sooner in some directions, take you further in others. At some point, you have to throw the guide book onto the passenger seat, slow your speed to a crawl and scan the farmland outside your window, often for several passes, until you find the obscure entrance into a local park that everyone who lives there can locate blindfolded. (more…)
Sometimes life, and water, is about the journey. How many times have I said that? Well, I’m saying it again. Dicks’ Creek (Boyd, 110) seemed like an interesting idea for a waterfall destination. It didn’t really sound like a falls at all. Turned out, it was an ADVENTURE instead. It was an amazing revelation you have to see for yourself one day.
Hiking the half-mile wild, meandering, non-existent trail in to the water and then out again, I had lots of time to wonder why there wasn’t a picture of the falls in Boyd’s book. Was I being toyed with? Was there really nothing to see, despite the EXCELLENT rating in the description?
Didn’t really matter, because the FOUR MILES of dirt, back-country, mountain roads I drove in my Nissan sedan just to get to the parking spot had been fun enough already to make the trip worthwhile.
It was beautiful country. Fields and undisturbed farmland.
VERY interesting mailboxes and property markers.
Yes–that is a rusted out truck between two lamp posts on the side of a dirt road, with the homestead’s street number painted on the front so the mailman (and few other’s I’m assuming that venture this far in from the main road) can find the place. (more…)
My quest to visit all waterfalls in the North Georgia mountains continues. On it, I’ve discovered that it’s not always about the water. Or the hike. Or the remoteness of the area I’m trying to see. Though the fascination with all of that is part of the journey for me, sometimes the challenge becomes about sitting and seeing and hearing things I wouldn’t anywhere else, except right where I am in moment where water’s speaking to me above everything else.
Toccoa falls is a tiny blip. It’s a barely there cascade controlled by a damn. A damn that broke over three decades ago and decimated the small college community around it, killing three dozen people. In middle school, I read a biography written by one of the survivers, and the experience lead me to avoid visiting the falls for longer than I care to admit. Places of great destruction tend to maintain a negative rush of energy I’m rarely comfortable with. But Toccoa falls is part of my journey now, so this past August I made my way to its base.
Access to the area’s restricted by a gate. You actually have to walk through a gift shop of all things to get to the sedate, paved path that leads to the sprinkling of water that is all that remains of the falls. Along the way you pass a plaque that tells the story of the tragedy that happend in this quiet place so different from the rugged, wild journeys I’ve taken to other water destinations. It was like visiting a grave. Not scary. No dark energy. Just…nothing. As if the past has been whitewashed away in an attempt to pretty up the present for our viewing enjoyment.
You’re struck by the hush. The almost non-existent brush of water over stone. (more…)
Ever wonder if the world enjoys making mock of your special projects? Then you wonder if you’re being just a little too cynical. Then you get some breakfast in you, warm up, take a look at your digital photos, and suddenly the world looks ethereally beautiful again…
What the heck am I talking about?
Well, I’ve done a lot of waterfall walking over the last few months. I’ll be blogging weekly about my many adventures.
The first new post HAD to be Minnehaha (Boyd, p. 112), and there’s a whole different story to share than I thought there would be.
I mean, Minnehaha…
The joke’s there in the name. (more…)
Fall’s coming (well, in a few months, but a girl can dream), so hopefully the 100 degree temps will let up soon. And the teenager’s heading back to school, so my days are going to be my own soon, and I’ll be missing him, and I’ll need a diversion. Oh, and the galleys for my next novel are in, so the off-the-hook stress is done there. So, time to dive back into my waterfall project.
This week I’m visiting a more substantial destination. Tallulah Falls (a 15-96 foot set of cascades waterfalls) and Tallulah Gorge itself are major tourist destinations near Clayton and Rabun Gap Georiga.
Absolutely leave time to explore.Get off the beaten path. You can hike down to the bottom of the gorge, traversing an 80 foot suspension bridge on your way. With a permit, you can actually walk out onto the falls and slide down to the crisp water below.
The Hurricane Falls staircase is fun going heading down to the gorge. But be careful– (more…)
Water is healing. Water is welcome and regeneration and peace. The sound of it is a natural anti-depressant for me. A sleep drug-free aid. It’s home,wherever I find it. And some places…well, some places are magical pockets of nurturing I know I’ll return to for the rest of my life. Sylvan Falls Mill (Boyd, p. 126) is one of those places. It’s a 50 foot water slide that falls off Taylor Creek near Clayton GA.
This is an historic grist mill built in 1840 and operating continuously as a mill ever since. And it’s home of one of the best mountain B&Bs I’ve ever visited. Mike and Linda, the owners, have become friends I know we’ll keep for the rest of our lives. Think amazing breakfasts and the sound of water running down the falls 24/7 and the most picturesque valey view you’ve ever scene, all framed by the backdrop of a national park–Blackrock Mountain.
Did I mention the fabulous falls (small, but there’s something raw and untouched and personal about them), running past some of the rooms and the breakfast area where you eat every morning (and where I write late at night if I can’t sleep). I’ve hiked the mountain, walked through the valley, and flat out love this place. My husband and son do, too. My son’s visited with us most of his life. Mike and Linda feel like they’ve watched him grow up.
And they have. (more…)
I grew up surrounded by water: the inter-coastal waterway (marshes) in my back yard, the Savanna River off to the left and the Atlantic Ocean a little further away and to the south, close enough that shore birds flew over my neighborhood every day. But in my adult life, I’m more often than not landlocked. Which leaves me migrating to water every chance I get now. I’m not picky, except that natural water sources enchant me more than man-made lakes ever could. When my creativity or simply my peace of mind needs a “hit,” I’m looking for water that flows, that I can walk into and touch; water that I can hear and close my eyes and still see; water that will come back to me in my dreams when I’m home and too far away again.
If you’re an artist, you know what I mean. You have a touchstone, too. Something you need to be healthy and inspired and free. If you’re a reader, you’re the same, too. That need is what draws you back time and again to certain stories. Certain authors. Certain themes.
Water is a common theme in my books. All kinds of water. Even when I write about dreams, there’s water symbolism everywhere–just wait until we talk about the dream symbolism in Secret Legacy ;o) I need it in my life. And I need to be out of my home office looking for it, whenever I don’t need to be here for work or family. Because it’s not just the water that drives me. It’s the nature around it. The isolation and belonging of it. The history and the immersion into the present. The travel and the coming home. The reality and dreaming. Water brings all those things to me.
So, I’ve embarked on a Waterfall project. (more…)
