Warwoman WMA

Ha ha! It's fall again. Seems like this happens every year.



Every year! What's that all about?

Cool weather, no bugs and red and yellow leaves, woohoo! Time to go run around in the mountains with friends.

A few weeks back, Michelle saw a cute photo of Sophie that I put up on Facebook and suggested that we all needed to go for another hike together. I agreed! But then I got busy for a while. This weekend though, everything worked out and she and Travis and the kids and I coordinated-up a waterfall-heavy hike up in Rabun County.

We met in Clayton and convoyed over to Warwoman Dell.

Interesting fact: there was going to be a railroad all through there.



I wonder exactly where it was going to be run. I've heard of that tunnel too. Norma mentioned it once. I wonder if it's in the National Forest. Hmmm...

We weren't checking out old rail beds though, we were headed in completely the opposite direction.



North!

To the Bartram Trail.



There were allegedly several awesome waterfalls really close to the road there.

We would find out.

Sophie hung out with Michelle and talked non-stop. It's funny, she's usually pretty quiet, but if there are enough people to occupy Isabel so that she doesn't have to compete for attention, she becomes a world-class chatterbox.

Me and Travis and Iz walked a little bit ahead and Emmy the dog walked even a little bit further ahead.



Actually she ran ahead then ran back, then ran ahead again, over and over. She probably put in two or three times the miles we did.

The first falls was right there, not a quarter mile from the road.

Becky Branch Falls:



Not bad.

There was this great little yellow salamander there too.



Never seen a yellow one before. Cool.

The Bartram Trail was cool too. Narrow, twisty, and it didn't look like it got a ton of traffic, at least that section. I need to thru-hike it some day. How many miles is that? I need to finish the Georgia AT first though, I think. Oh, I'm getting sidetracked.

The next falls was a couple of miles further on.

There was a little falls by a campsite and we wondered if that was it, but the campers directed us to the real deal, which was a good bit more spectacular.



We spent twenty or thirty minutes there.

Took some photos...





On the way back we checked out the little one too.



Just below the cascade there was a deep pothole.



Travis said that in his paddling days they called those "The Room of Doom."

Sophie only heard part of that and she was all: "What's a Room of Doom?" Cute.

A girl at the campsite mentioned a small but impressive little gorge thing below the falls. It was pretty cool all right, but hard to get a photo of.



The rest of the hike back made the girls kind of tired.

"How many minutes did it take us to get here earlier?"

Iz, in particular, is very creative with those kinds of questions lately.

It didn't take too long to get back. It's only like 2 miles out and 2 miles back.

Upon entering the Warwoman Dell again, we noticed a pair of old trout rearing tanks from way back in the CCC days.



Cool!

Trout are good but I'm not sure I'd want trout for too many meals in a row.

Speaking of meals, it was lunch time and we headed back to Clayton for some Zeppelin's. The last time I ate there was years ago on the way up to one of Isabel's gym meets. They have good pizza and groovy decor, but it is a little pricey.

Ha ha kids, you thought we were done, but no!

Back into the mountains...



...to the Holcomb Creek Trail.

See:



Holcomb Creek Trail. Fancy.

We descended deeply off the road to Holcomb Creek where we found the most impressive falls we'd seen yet today.



It doesn't look all that big close up on Sophie, but this wide shot with Travis and Emmy puts it in perspective.



Yeah!

Further down the trail we found the Ammons Creek Falls too.



So many waterfalls! Everywhere!

I wonder how many more there are up that way.

The hike back out was all uphill and steep. Steeeep.

And, oh, look, another waterfall.



The trail out ended at the road and we had to walk back on the road, which seemed weird to the kids. In retrospect, I could only think of one other time we did that, so yeah, maybe it would seem weird.

Woohoo, what a day! Good weather, good friends, quality time with the kids. I think I've seen enough waterfalls for the next 10 years though.

Maybe next time we'll go to Stone Mountain or something.