With the pandemic, holidays have been a bit challenging. We spent Thanksgiving morning at Amicalola Falls State Park and topped it off with a short hike at Fort Mountain State Park, just 50 miles away.

Directions and Fees

Since we were coming from Amicalola State Park, we continued 50 miles on Hwy 52 on the Southern border of the Chattahoochee National Forest. After driving past the apple barns in Ellijay, the road becomes curvy while ascending to elevations of 2,500 feet. It’s not scary at all, just beautiful.

From Atlanta, the park lies 90 miles northwest and can be accessed by I-75 to I-575. Only the last 16 miles from Ellijay to the park require non-interstate roads. 

All Georgia state parks requre a $5/vehicle entrance feet. 

The Trails

Fort Mountain offers 25 miles of trails. Popular hiking trails include the 1.2-mile Lake Loop and the 8.7-mile Gahuti Trail. The park also boasts a 14-mile mountain bike trail and 16 miles of horse trails.

Since we’d already climbed over 600 steps at Amicalola Falls, we chose the easy, 1-mile combination Stone Tower Trail and West Overlook trails. Driving to the top of the mountain, we parked at the Old Fort Picnic Area. In one of the brick shelters, a family was celebrating Thanksgiving and we could smell wood burning from the large fireplace. 

We started on the yellow-blazed trail and somehow missed a turn and found ourselves on the red-blazed Tower Trail. The leaf-covered trail had a small uphill and soon we came to the junction taking us to the Stone Wall trail.

Soon we came to a low-lying stone wall. While nobody knows who built this crumbling wall or its purpose, it extends over 800 feet. Experts estimate the wall to be somewhere from 500-1500 years old. The Cherokee Indians who inhabited the area attributed the wall to the “moon-eyed people” they drove out. 

We turned left and headed to the Fire Tower. Because the park opened around 1936. the Conservation Civilian Corps (CCC) built many of the structures including the 38-foot Fire Tower. Our teens couldn’t quite understand the purpose of fire towers. “You mean someone sat up there and watched for a fire?” one of them asked. Well yes – there weren’t any cell phones or drones back then.

The fire tower served in that capacity until the 1960s when a modern fire tower in a nearby location replaced it. In the early 1970s, the tower suffered significant damage and it wasn’t restored until 2015. An interesting article about the restoration can be found here. Today, visitors can climb the tower during specific times on the weekends. 

From here, we walked down a set of stairs to the West Overlook which provided sweeping views of the surrounding area. As we retraced our steps up the staircase, we hooked onto the West Overlook trail back to the parking lot, passing large stone boulders.

We all agreed it had been an enjoyable Thankgsiving Day. 

For more information about the park, click their website here.