HELEN, GEORGIA AND ANNA RUBY FALLS

We left Greenville and headed to Helen, Georgia.  We stayed at a very nice park there, Yonah Mountain Campground.  It is a Coast to Coast park.  So, we paid our $10 a night when we made reservations and they charge an additional $3 per night for 50 amp electricity.  It was time to do laundry and Mr. W had read that the laundry facilities were good and they were.  The sites are not right next to each other.  There are a lot of trees.  The roads and sites are gravel.  They have a clubhouse, playground, pool, and activities.  There seem to be a lot of people living here, but there were also a lot of people using it as a campground/RV park. I would definitely go back there.

We decided to go see one of the waterfalls in the area.  We went to see Anna Ruby falls.  It was not a long hike, but it was a steep hike.  You know the person who finally gets in shape and says that they will NEVER let themselves get out of shape again and then they do?  Well, that’s me.  After all that hiking I did last year, I was huffing up this mountain.  I wasn’t as bad as I was when I started last year, but I wasn’t as good as I was after doing all of that hiking.  ANYWAY, when we reached the falls, it was well worth the hike.  Captain John Nichols found the falls as he was riding his horse one day. He was wealthy and owned most of the land in the vicinity. He named the falls after his only daughter.  Thus, the name Anna Ruby.

 

This ran along the trail

 

Anna Ruby Falls is actually twin waterfalls created where two separate streams- Curtis Creek and York Creek- join at the base of the falls to form Smith Creek, which flows into Unicoi Lake. Both Curtis and York creeks begin on Tray Mountain, Georgia's sixth-highest peak: Curtis Creek drops 153 feet and York Creek drops 50 feet.

 

A shot of the falls

Just because I thought it was pretty..... :)

 It was pretty crowded at the falls.  It was a Saturday.  However, it never ceases to amaze me at how rude and pushy people can be in a crowd.  Everyone there was trying to get a picture of the falls, which I get.  I was trying to get a picture too.  But, get to a spot for a pic, take your pic, and get out of the way.  It wasn’t like the crowd was going to get any less crowded.  You don’t stand in a prime spot, take 20 pics, continue standing there while you look through all 20 pics, decide none of those are what you want, take 20 more pics, etc.  You get the idea.  OK, I’m off my soap box now.

After we left the falls, we decided to go to the town of Helen.  Helen is a little town disguised as an Alpine Village.  There are shops, eateries, and hotels everywhere in the 3 or 4 blocks that are Helen.  There is a river that runs through the town and there were some people floating down the river in tubes.  I didn’t think it was warm enough to be a tube but I bet it feels REALLY good in the summer! I thought all of the stores were overpriced and didn’t really have any merchandise that I was interested in buying.  It is very much a touristy town. They do a good job of marketing it because it is still the off-season and it was crowded. The traffic was bad in Helen and there is no public parking.  All parking lots are privately owned and it costs to park. 

 

Park in town

A small waterfall in the park

We decided to take a break and go to one of the restaurants on the river and have some refreshments while we watched the tubers went down the river.  That was a nice break. 

I think Helen is one of those places that I will check off my list and say “been there, done that.” I really wasn't impressed.