Raven Cliff Falls (GA) & Dukes Creek Falls
Aug. 4th, 2016 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flyminion
I want to start off by saying that I hesitate to even call this a swimming hole trek, since (spoiler alert) I didn’t actually find any legitimate swimming holes on today's excursion. However, I guess half the point of sharing these (mis)adventures is finding the duds so you don’t have to. Granted, the waterfalls and the scenery here are worth seeing, but don’t make this trip if you have your heart set on taking a dip. Anyway, here goes.Today, Cade and I went to check out some waterfalls on Dodd Creek and Dukes Creek near Helen, GA. This was day 2 of our six-day swimming hole and waterfall marathon in north Georgia and the Carolinas. It had been raining the night before, and there was an 80% chance of rain today with a flash flood watch, so I didn’t even bother checking to see if Tallulah Gorge was issuing gorge floor permits. All the other potential points of interest I had marked were on larger creeks and rivers, which would not be good places to be in a flash flood, so I recommended Raven Cliff Falls (the one in Georgia) on Dodd Creek, since that creek is smaller and its tributaries originate in the immediate vicinity. The swimming hole situation seemed pretty iffy for Dodd Creek in this particular area. A couple of the sources I had read online mentioned swimming holes or large pools, but there was no photographic evidence to substantiate this. The Raven Cliff Falls trail has three smaller waterfalls before Raven Cliff Falls, and I had seen another potential waterfall from an unnamed tributary when I examined Google Earth. Downstream from the Raven Cliffs recreation area is Dukes Creek Falls, a tributary waterfall that spills into Dukes Creek (which is basically Dodd Creek after it joins up with another stream downstream of Raven Cliffs) from the side. We planned to do the Raven Cliff Trail and then check out Dukes Creek Falls if we had time.
Shortly after leaving the parking area on the Raven Cliff Trail, we came to a large primitive camping area with a rope swing by the creek. I did not get in the water here, but it appeared to only be five feet deep or less.
We came to the first waterfall (and I use the term loosely) fairly early into the hike. It was a series of cascades that totaled about 10-12 feet in height. There were a couple of potholes in the waterfall, abiet not very deep.
Cade went down the scramble trail first. I started to follow, but then I saw yellow jackets flying in and out of a small burrow in the side of the hill. I went down another scramble trail about ten feet adjacent to that one, and I could see part of the paper nest sticking out. I don’t know how Cade got down without stirring up the nest. There was a small pool at the bottom of the falls that looked fairly deep, but I decided I would save it for the return trip if we didn’t find anything better further upstream.
It was a little ways to the second waterfall. This one was a vertical drop of about 8-10 feet.
We scrambled down to the bottom, but there was no swimming hole here.
I thought the third waterfall (also known as Dodd Creek Falls, according to the display in the parking area), which was supposed to be the biggest of the three smaller falls, would be the most likely to have a swimming hole. We had been passed by a family of four earlier in the hike, but they had gotten ahead of us as we were checking out the second waterfall. As we neared the third waterfall, which was only a short distance upstream, we could hear shrieking through the trees. At first I thought they were probably getting into the creek and shrieking because of the cold, but when we got to where they were, they said they had stirred up a nest of yellow jackets when they started to go down one of the scramble trails to the falls. The girls had long skirts on, and they were still getting stung because of the wasps in their clothes. They decided to turn back. We were hesitant to proceed while the wasps were still riled up, so we used a scramble trail a little further downstream to get down to the creek, and we bushwhacked up to the falls through the rhododendrons. This waterfall was a good 15-20 feet and was surrounded by cliffs, but the pool at the bottom looked to only be about 3-4 feet deep. The sun here made photographing anything besides the waterfall difficult, but you can get a better idea of the surroundings from the video.
Cade of course had to climb up the cliffs on the side of the waterfall to get back to the trail, but I went back up the way we came.
From there, it was a while before we reached Raven Cliff Falls. As we neared the cliffs, the trail got steeper and the small cascades on the creek became more frequent. At Raven Cliff Falls, the water drops about 50 feet into a narrow slot between two rock walls, and then empties out of the slot over a couple of smaller cascades before continuing on down the hill.
The first picture is from the base looking up, and the second picture is from the top looking down:
For some reason, this waterfall made me think of a penny fountain in a mall. I guess it was the acoustics of the relatively small water volume splashing into a shallow pool in an enclosed area, and the fact that the pool was clear and full of brown pebbles. The surrounding cliffs were easily over 100 feet high. There appeared to be another drop above the one in the slot, but it was hard to see from the base. We started up the steep path next to the cliffs, and a couple of guys who we had passed at the base began coming up behind us. It was basically a hand-over-feet climb to the top, and one slip would have meant a long, rocky slide to the bottom.
I was not looking forward to coming back down this way. When we got to the very top of the cliffs, we could see a partial view of the upper drop through the trees.
We conversed a bit with the two guys who had come up behind us. They were from Atlanta, although one of them said he was originally from Maine (I thought I had detected a northern accent). After a few minutes, Cade and I continued on the path. I’m not sure if this was the official trail anymore, but it was well worn. We crossed the creek upstream of the falls and started heading downstream on the other side. We took a scramble trail that went into the chasm between the upper and lower drops.
Here is a picture of the upper drop:
And here is a compilation of video clips of the falls from various vantage points:
Afterwards, we continued downstream and found that the path looped back around to the base of the falls. This descent was still steep, but a lot less sketchy than the way we had come up. I thought about climbing the small cascades to see if there was a pool at the base of the lower drop, but some teenagers said they had just gone up there, and it was only about waist deep, so I decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
We then decided to bushwhack up a sidestream in search of the mystery waterfall I had seen on Google Earth. It was surprisingly open for most of the way, aside from some downfall here and there, but the last little bit was basically a crawl through thick rhododentrons. We walked through the stream to approach the base of the waterfall, but it was such a small stream that there were still plenty of rhododendrons to contend with. The waterfall started out as about an 8-foot drop, and then a steep 50-60 foot slide down a rock face. There was no good view of it, and there was deadfall all over it, so it ended up being pretty unremarkable. I didn't get a good picture of it, but Cade climbed out onto the middle of the waterfall and took this photo from about halfway up, above the deadfall:
We bushwhacked back to the main trail. I was hot, sticky, and filthy, and I was looking forward to returning to the first waterfall to check out the pool at the base. It seemed to take a lot longer to get there on the way back. When we finally got there, I almost forgot about the yellow jacket nest on the first scramble trail, but I remembered as I started to go down and took the alternate route. The pool at the base of the falls only ended up being chest deep, which was disappointing, but it still felt refreshing to get into the water and clean up after the bushwhack.
We got back to the car and drove about half a mile down the road to the Duke Creek Falls recreation area. This was a well maintained trail with boardwalks in certain places. A sign said there was a $500 fine for leaving the established trail. On the map, it looked like the falls were fairly close to the parking area, although the sign said the hike was a mile. This ended up being because the trail switchbacked down into the gorge. Along the way, we saw a decent waterfall on Dukes Creek that looked like it might have a decent swimming hole, but we couldn’t (legally) get down to the base. There was a scramble trail, though, so it was obvious people had done it. This was the best view I could get from the 'established trail':
Just past this area, the creek began to roar and dropped out of sight. The trail switchbacked down to this loud area. There was a boardwalk along the creek where Dukes Creek Falls dropped in (it had to be at least 150 feet high).
There were also a couple of 20-foot waterfalls just upstream on Dukes Creek.
And here is video of the all the falls visible from the boardwalk:
The final Dukes Creek waterfall looked like it had a potentially deep pool, but I was too tired and hungry by this point for it to be worth the effort of illegally climbing over the boardwalk and getting down to the creek.
By some miracle, it had not rained at all during this excursion, despite the forecast.
We also wanted to quickly check out Anna Ruby Falls in Unicoi State Park on the way back, but the gate was closed by the time we got there.
In summary, today’s excursion had a couple of cool waterfalls, but was pretty much a bust in the way of legally accessible swimming holes. Granted, I didn’t get into the water at the area with the rope swing on Dodd Creek, so I can’t say for sure that it wasn’t deep, but it didn’t look like it from above the water. I’m hoping we will start getting into the good stuff tomorrow.
