Camping, kayaking and boating in the Okefenokee Swamp

 

Date: 1/17/15 – 1/19/15

Location: Stephen Foster State Park, Fargo Georgia

Camping Site # 49 

For a long time now, Julie has had camping in the Okefenokee Swamp on her “bucket” list. Since we can’t seem to find any campsites in Florida with openings this time of year, we decided to make a reservation at Stephen Foster State Park in south Georgia. This state park is actually totally within the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, which make it a little different than many of the other state parks.

We arrived at the state park on Saturday morning after a very easy two hour drive from our home. In Georgia State parks you reserve a campsite that is suitable for the type of camping you do (tent, trailer, large rig, etc), but not for a specific site, Being that we were coming in on a Saturday we were a little concerned that we wouldn’t find a nice site. But we had nothing to worry about as there were a good number of sites to choose from that would accommodate our trailer. Most sites in this park are well spaced, so you are not right on top of your neighbor.

After we got set up, we ate a quick lunch and then decided to do some kayaking. Near the park store and check-in is a large boat basin and a canal that leads out to Billy’s Lake. The canal has large grassy banks on one side, which makes launching your kayak or canoe very easy. The far bank is swampy, boggy area where he many gators hang out and watch as your get into your boat!!

Coming out of the canal you enter into Billy’s Lake with is a long, narrow lake of about 3 miles in length. For today’s paddle we decided to take a left and head over to Billy’s Island to take the nature walk around that island. It was an easy 2 mile paddle to get there.

It was an overcast and somewhat grey day, but the wind was down and the temperatures were perfect in the low 60’s.

This the GPS track of the track we took to get to Billy’s Island.

 

There’s a dock and boardwalk at the landing, but it was a little crowded with other canoes and motor boats. So, we decided to just pull up on land.

Here is a photo sphere picture of the docking area at Billy’s Island.

Billy’s island was originally inhabited by local Native American's, but later became a small town where many working the lumber industry lived. Back in the early 1900’s there were attempts to build canals and drain the swamp to make timber harvest easier. They finally abandoned that idea and the town on Billy’s Island ceased to exist. But before they gave up, a lot of the swamps cypress trees were cut and hauled out by train on tracks built to cross the swamps.

There’s not much left of the town on Billy’s Island, but theirs is some old pieces of equipment scattered here and there. Also, there is a small cemetery located near the boat docking area.

The hiking trail on the island is relatively short at three quarters of a mile. Below is the GPS track of this hike.

 

On our paddle back to the state park, we took a few side trips in the small creeks that lead deep into the swamp. These creeks are not marked and after your go a short distance you realize how easy it would be to get turned around and loose your way. When hiking or paddling we always carry a GPS and track where we’ve come from. Hopefully making it unlikely we’d get turnaround and lost.

 

While paddling around these back areas, we encountered many flocks of birds and had a few owls screeching back and forth to each other. Besides the birds, there really is no other outside noise. Really a pretty cool experience.

And our GPS track from Billy’s Island back to Stephen Foster State Park

 

On Sunday morning we found the boardwalk that begins behind the visitors center and heads off into the swamp. After about a quarter mile the boardwalk ends, although you can see old sections leading off into the distance. Probably a victim of the fires that ravages these swamps a few years ago.

 

The Okefenokee Swap is huge, taking up about 440,000 acres straddling the Florida/Georgia boarder. Back in 2007 a lightening strike started a wild file that consumed over 600,000 acres in the area, including vast areas within the Okefenokee swamp. Another large wildfire in 2011 burned other sections of the swamp. As a result, much of the area around Billy’s Lake looks like the picture below. A good article about the fires can be found at this link.

 

Here is a photo sphere picture of the end of the board walk looking off into the swamp.

Here is GPS track of our swamp boardwalk hike.

 

Sunday afternoon we wanted to go further into the swamp than our paddling arms wanted to take us. The park offers john boats with small gas motors for rent. We decided to get one of these boats for four hours.

We first headed west on Billy’s Lake as far as we could go. We motored about a mile and a half to Mixon’s Hammock where we turned around and then headed east back towards Billy’s Island.

The Okefenokee Swamp is called the land of the trembling earth, for all of the floating islands of vegetation. But it should also be called the land of many gators. They were everywhere and we passed one after another as we boated by. And those are just the ones we saw. I’m sure there were an equal number of gators that we didn’t happen to notice. 

 

A picture showing the areas of burned out trees from the wild fires that consumed this area.

The Okefenokee is the headwaters for the Suwannee River, with about 90% of the water flowing out of the swamp feeding that river. We passed this sign pointing out the Suwanee Sill where the river originates.

 

Heading north out of Billy’s Lake we followed a river (or a at times a narrow stream!) that is part of one of the many canoe/kayak trails that wind through the swamp. We had hoped to get as far as Big Water Lake which is the northern most boundary for “day use” activity. But the boating was slow with many twists and turn along the way. And we encountered a somewhat large group of boy scouts canoeing in the opposite direction. It was obvious that they were not ever given any paddling lessons as they were bouncing from shore to shore, with almost none of them heading in a straight line. So, we puller over many times to let them pass and found their antics amusing. Although we did feel sorry for the one group with the canoe that had tipped and they were attempting to tow the submerged canoe the three miles back the dock. A few of the adults in the group looked a little grumpy!!

We did make it to the Minnie’s Lake Rest Shelter. This is a structure above the water built on stilts. It was a good place to get out and stretch your legs and have a little lunch. There were a few other groups there and it was interesting talking with them and hearing about their day.

Here is the track of our day on the water in the john boat.

Sunday afternoon, after our time on the water, we found a few of the other short hiking trails they have within the park. The Upland trail winds its’ way from the park road, out into an old old pine forest, which is now mostly gone with some young pines now starting to fill in. The only problem is that about three-quarters of the trail is under water. We had out water shoes on, so we decided to forge on and completed our hike.

And one last photo sphere picture at the half way point of the Upland Trail hike.

 

And our last hike was the Fitness Trail which boarders the camping loops. Along the way they have some exercises for you to do. Julie did some of them and I watched!!

 

On Monday morning it was time to pack up and head back home. Julie and I have added this park as one to make a return trip to and do some more exploring sometime in the near future.

Camping at Cloudland Canyon State Park

 

Date: 11/8/14 – 11/11/14

Location: Rising Fawn, Georgia

 

On our list of places to camp was somewhere north of us and during the fall where maybe we could catch some fall color. Many years ago we had visited areas around the north Georgia mountains, such as Unicoi and Vogel state parks. Both well known camping locations in the mountains of north Georgia. Just recently I’ve started reading about a campground and park in the very northwest corner of Georgia called Cloudland Canyon. This location is about a 7 – 8 hour drive from our home and about the max we would do for a long weekend. And unfortunately, the only direct way to get there is to drive right through the center of Atlanta which is not always a fun adventure while pulling an RV. But we decided that the long day of travel was worth visiting a park that we’ve never seen before and one that gets great reviews.

With Tuesday being Veterans Day, we decided to take a vacation day on Monday to make it a nice 4 day long weekend. This would allow us a couple days of long driving, but also a few days to relax and explore the park. It turns out we couldn’t have picked a better time weather wise to visit. The nighttime lows were about 40 degrees, with the daytime highs in the upper 60’s to low 70’s. With clear skies and perfect temps, we definitely hit it just right!

We were a little concerned since the online reservation system showed the park was completely full over the weekend and we were scheduled to arrive Saturday afternoon. We were expecting to get one of the leftover, non-prime spots. But we figured if the site was too bad, we would just move on Sunday afternoon when the majority of the campers were leaving.

We arrived at Cloudland Canyon at around 2:00pm on Saturday, checked in and them drove directly to the West Side campground. We heard this camping loop was a little nicer and more spread out than the one on the east side of the park. Within minutes we drove by an open site, only the second open site we saw and it was a beautiful location. No other campsite on the right and plenty of room between this site and the next on the left. We discussed continuing to drive around looking at spots, but decided to not take our chances, so we snagged it!

As you can see from the pictures below, this camping site is very nice and with the bonus of some trees with fall color. Also, on Sunday about half the campground checked out and almost all of the rest left on Monday. So, by that time we had this section of the west loop campground all to ourselves. Very nice!!

 

 

After we got checked in on Saturday, we rested for a short bit and then decided to check out the day use area and some of the many hiking trails. We heard that this park was unique and offered some amazing views, but we really didn’t realize how awesome it would turn out to be.

Here’s a few pictures looking out over one of the canyons the park is named after. A beautiful view showing some of the fall colors down in the valley.

 

 

 

One of the benefits of camping here, that we appreciated more as the weekend progressed, was the amount of hiking trails they had built all over this park. And also the fact that all were easily accessible from the campgrounds and cabins. They also put in a ton of effort making some of the scenic overlooks accessible and also safe. Like this overlook below with the fence to prevent anyone from falling. Theses type of overlooks were common on many of the trails.

 

Of course there were also many spots where you could get close to the edge with nothing preventing you from falling. Here’s Julie doing her best to increase the excitement level some.

 

Probably one of the best hikes in the park is the West Rim Loop Trail. This trail winds around the section of the park where we were camped and is an amazing hike. Both Julie and I would rate this as one of the best and most exciting hikes we have ever done. I’d give it the number two spot on my list, right below Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park. Julie thinks it rates ahead of that hike, so you can tell we really enjoyed it!

This overlook, looking north out of the park towards Chattanooga, was an example of how much effort they put into giving you places to view the surrounding mountains and canyons. But this one was very slanted and wanted to move you close to the edge where the drop was hundreds of feet. Here’s Julie holding on to the railing while staying away from the drop off.

 

Over the years I’ve always snickered at campers who carry their little dog around in a sling or push it in a stroller. Every year we go to the Tampa RV Super Show and I just have to laugh at all the people (mainly men!!!) carrying their little fluffy. Well, this is what I get for laughing at them…..it’s now us!! We have a little grand-doggy who usually stays home with a dog sitter when we go camping, but we decided to try and save a little money and started bringing her along. Julie ordered an over the shoulder sling/pouch so we can take her hiking with us. From the picture below, it doesn’t look like she is too stressed. I actually think she enjoyed it and she sure did get a lot of attention from the fellow hikers we passed along the way.

 

Almost all of the hiking trails in the park have a lot of elevation changes, with many of them descending all the way to the bottom of the ravines. We surely didn’t have to worry about getting our exercise during this weekend. On many of the hikes to the bottom there were interesting rock formations and some caves.

 

And along the way we passed several high waterfalls. However, Zelda (the dog) didn’t like the waterfalls. Guess all the water noise reminded her of bath time!

 

 

I probably took a hundred pictures of the view looking out over the canyon. It was just too good to pass up. It did make it a little challenging whittling down the pics to the ones I’d use in this blog entry.

 

 

At one point Julie took the camera away from me. I think it was after I’d taken the hundredth picture of her and the surrounding fall colors. This is one she snapped of me. I figured I’d add it as it’s one of the few you will see of me here. 

 

Over the long weekend, we just about hiked ourselves to death. We are flatlanders from Florida. So, all these hikes and the elevation changes were a great workout. If we had stayed another day, it would have had to be a day of rest. We both had tired legs at the end. I figured we did between 20 – 25 miles of hiking over those few days. That’s a lot for two old farts!

Here’s a link to a short YouTube video from this camping trip

And some GPS tracks from some of the hikes we took

Cloudland Canyon’s Overlook Trail Hike on Wikiloc and EveryTrail

Cloudland Canyon’s West Rim Loop Trail on Wikiloc and Everytrail

Cloudland Canyon’s Waterfall Trail on Wikiloc and Everytrail

Cloudland Canyon’s Sitton Gulch Trail on Wikiloc and EveryTrail

First camping night in the new trailer.

Date: 10/15/2011
Location:
GPS Coordinates: 30.718203, -84.852352
We drove from our home in Gainesville, Florida up to Columbus, Georgia to pick up our new travel trailer.  A new Heartland Edge that we found at the Columbus RV Center. Excited about our new purchase, we wanted to find a campground somewhere half way back to home so we could spend the night and get to know our camper. We eventually found a site at the East Lake Campground on Lake Seminole. The was a very nice, clean park with well spaced sites. Most sites were very open (few trees) and many right on the lake.

Our new camper!

Julie relaxing after getting the camper somewhat set up.


Here is our Review of this campground:
Website:
http://www.sam.usace.army.mil/Missions/CivilWorks/Recreation/LakeSeminole/Camping.aspx
Site Number: ?? (forget the number)
Date visited: 10/15/2011
Rating (1 = low, 5 = high)
Campsite size: 4
Campsite space between sites: 3
Campsite privacy between sites: 3
Campsite level: 5
Campsite parking: Concrete
Campfire permitted: yes in fire ring
Campsite picnic table: Concrete
Campground Facilities: 4
Campground access to hiking: 4
Campground access to water (kayaking, fishing, swimming, etc): 5
Campground access to biking: 3
Overall Campground rating: 3.5
 
We did do a few very short hikes at this campground. There were not many hiking opportunities, but we did find a few to take advantage of. There was one short hike off of the campground loop furthest away from the water. Also, you can make your way over to the dam built to create Lake Seminole.
 
Access road leading up to the dam.

Looking back towards the campground from the dam. The water in the lake was somewhat weed choked and the warm lake water caused things to be very buggy in spots.