Camping Trip to Vogel State Park, April 2019

Hello Everyone! We went camping last week to Vogel State Park near Blairsville, GA and had a great time. The weather was perfect, too. We went on the same exact dates last year for our first trip in the Rpod and it rained (really rained) every day. You can read about that trip here. Vogel is the second oldest park in the state and was built by the CCC. It sits at the base of Blood Mountain, the highest summit on the Appalachian Trail.

Lake Trahlyta with Blood Mountain in the background.

We were able to choose our site (64) here and chose an area with only a few other sites around.

After setting up and resting for a bit, we took a walk around the park and the lake. At the far end of the lake is Trahlyta Falls. The lake was full and so were the falls.

Trahlyta Falls

The first day was the clearest, as seen above, but they were all beautiful.

For our morning coffee, we used my new Wander North Georgia mugs I got for Christmas.

We’ve been to Vogel twice before, once for a day visit when the kids were really young, then a second time 12 years ago to camp in our pop-up. That time we hiked the Bear Hair Gap Trail, which in our opinion, is one of the hardest trails we’ve hiked. It was very rocky and rooty. Once you got to the top however, the view was spectacular. We felt we didn’t need to hike it again. Instead, we headed out for a waterfall tour.

Helton Creek Falls

Our first stop of the day was at Helton Creek Falls. It’s not far from the park, but you need to travel on a small paved road through a conclave of cabins, then on a forest service road. It was a short hike to the falls and like all of them this year, had a full flow from all the rain we’ve had this winter.

Half way up Helton Creek Falls

We were able to walk to the top of the falls here.

Our next stop was at Neels Gap and the Walasi-yi Inn on Blood Mountain, an AT trail stop.

Walasi-yi Inn

The Inn was originally for people visiting the park and also built by the CCC. Now, it’s the first main stop along the AT where hikers can resupply.

The AT going through the Inn.

Shoe Tree

This is the infamous shoe tree. Supposedly, hikers who quit here throw their shoes into the tree. I’ve read that the first part of the trail through Georgia is one of the toughest sections.

Brass Town Bald

I could never get a good picture, but this is Brass Town Bald through the trees. It’s the highest peak in Georgia.

After we left Neels Gap, we headed down the mountain a little bit to DeSoto Falls.

Lower Falls

DeSoto Falls is in the Chattahoochee National Forest. There is a nice day parking area with picnic tables and a campground. There are two falls located here, the Lower and Upper Falls. The Lower Falls has about a 40 foot drop while the Upper Falls is about a 100 foot drop with cascading falls.

Upper Falls

We had a nice hike to both falls, then had a picnic lunch. We made our way back to the campsite and had a chill rest of the afternoon.

On the third day, we hung out at the campsite in the morning, then headed off to Crane Creek Vineyard in Young Harris after lunch.

We did a wine tasting, then shared a bottle of wine. It was a gorgeous afternoon and perfect place to sip wine and hang out for a few hours. We decided we were looking at the North Carolina mountains here.

The grape vines were just starting to leaf out. This would be a perfect place for a special event.

For this trip, we spent three nights and two full days and were about two hours from home. Our next outing will be to Pensacola for my daughter’s college graduation. I think our next camping trip will be sometime in June. I can’t wait to get out again. It’s always so much fun. We haven’t had a bad trip yet.

Thanks for stopping by.