We kicked off the Spring 2024 camping season with a trip to Vogel State Park with the SE T@bs, T@gs, and Friends. About 30 teardrops were scattered around Vogel that weekend. I had been following the group on Facebook for a while and hoping to attend one of their gatherings. We enjoyed their traditions of hiking, a brewery meal, and roaring campfires. In fact I have already booked our next trip with this fun group.
Philip and J spent a couple of nights with us too. They hiked the one-mile loop around Lake Trahlyta, the park’s main lake. The lake is named for a Cherokee maiden who is buried a few miles away at Stonepile Gap. The spillway over the dam that forms the lake was roaring from the recent rains. Matthew and his crew joined in on the lake hike. You can just see the three grands across the lake on the trail in the second photo below.
Vogel is Georgia’s second state park. Although we have hiked the nearby trails and visited the area’s waterfalls over the years, for some reason we have never camped at Vogel. What a treat it is. The spacious campsites are newly refurbished. The abundance of outdoor activities at the park and surrounding area makes it one of the most popular parks in Georgia.
Vogel State Park lies at the base of iconic Blood Mountain. Philip hiked the steep 7.5 mile roundtrip trail to the top of Blood Mountain both mornings. The scenic views on the spacious open boulder-strewn summit and the two-room stone hiker’s shelter make this one of the most-hiked segments of the Appalachian Trail (AT) in Georgia. Indeed it is a Bishop family favorite and we have approached in from various angles.
The nearby Walasi-Yi Center houses an outfitter store. We make it a point to visit if we are anywhere nearby. The breezeway at the store is the only place on the AT that passes through a man-made structure. Sure enough when Joe and I backpacked this section of the AT years ago, passing through the breezeway was a special right of passage. They cater to AT through hikers at the store, offering them food, supplies, advice, a bit of warm, dry fellowship, as well as a place to dispose of their excess gear along their journey. Maybe you can just make out the hiker shoes in the tree below.
We visited the Byron Herbert Reece Farm and Heritage Center located a couple of miles from Vogel. The farm celebrates the hard scrabble life of the lyrical Pulitzer-prize nominated poet who was the “voice of Appalachia”. Southern Literary Trail described Reece as a “hill and bottomland farmer who cultivated words and harvested poetry”. He taught at Young Harris and was a writer-in-residence at Emory and UCLA.
Reece’s poems and novels reflect a love his family’s farm and feature themes of soil, nature, religion, and family.
We found a peace there as we roamed through the farm buildings and rock-strewn garden area, a peace that largely escaped Reece, who suffered from financial and mental hardships.
Our lunch of trout overlooked the river.
The next day we visited the Brasstown Bald Visitor’s Center. Again, we have hiked almost all of the AT in Georgia and seen many of the peaks in the state, yet we had not visited Brasstown Bald, the highest mountain in Georgia at 4,784 feet.
The observation deck offers stunning 360 views of the Appalachian Mountains with the potential of viewing four states and the Atlanta skyline on a clear day.
The signage encircling the observation deck gives a label to the mountains that we have normally seen from a different viewpoint while hiking up many of these steep trails.
Joe said the .6 mile trail from the parking lot to the top went straight up. I would not know since I took the shuttle. But then I learned how to tell mountain laurel from rhododendron. The shuttle driver said to focus on the D in Rhododendron (it has big dog-eared leaves) and the L in Mountain Laurel (it has little leaves). Ok, but I am still unclear as to which one this is.
Joe and I moved to North Georgia recently after a lifetime in South Georgia. A lifetime of memories. Now we are ready for new memories. New memories in North Georgia near the kids and grandkids. New memories near the North Georgia mountains. Vogel State Park, we will be back.
Congrats on the move! Hope you all are doing well!
Lolli – Thanks for keeping up with us through the blog! We are still visiting the Marriott in Columbus and think of you often. Hope you are well!