About Minnehaha Falls
Minnehaha Falls was Julie’s favorite waterfall in Georgia as it possessed what Julie described as “having character.”
It cascaded over a series of steps surrounded by beautiful and contrasting Autumn colors in a picturesque and tranquil setting. The cumulative drop is said to be about 60ft. And given the waterfall’s unassuming nature as there weren’t obvious signs to find this place, there weren’t the type of crowds we had experienced at both Amicalola Falls and Anna Ruby Falls. Indeed, it was the type of waterfall experience we wanted to prolong and not leave.
The trail to the falls is a short 0.6 mile hike (0.3 miles in each direction) to the waterfall from the trailhead. The trailhead itself is easy to miss, and it was some scrawled text on the railing of the stairs that said “TO MINNIHAHA” that indicated to us that we had found the right place. At least it was either that or the “147” sign with the green diamond opposite the steps that could have also served as the trailhead indicator.
Once we ascended the short steps, we were on a fairly narrow dirt trail with lots of fallen leaves, some rocks, and some roots that made the footing somewhat uneven. Nonetheless, it was a fairly straightforward mostly flat walk (with a slight uphill grade) leading up to the waterfall itself so the overall hike didn’t take very long (35 minutes according to my trip logs).
There were some large slabs of rock that served as a natural impromptu seating area to take it all in.
Minnehaha Falls is near Lake Rabun. We drove here from Anna Ruby Falls so here was the way we went.
From Anna Ruby Falls Rd, we headed east on Hwy 356 for about 10 miles then turned left onto Hwy 197 and took that for about another 3 miles. Then, we turned right onto Burton Dam Rd, followed it for about 3 miles veering right to go onto Seed Lake Rd. We then proceeded on Seed Lake Rd for another 4.4 miles before turning right across a bridge onto Bear Gap Rd. We drove the unpaved Bear Gap Rd another 1.7 miles before arriving at the trailhead.
We definitely had to pay close attention since there were no obvious signs en route that indicated the presence of the waterfall.
The trailhead parking seemed to be able to reasonably fit about 3 or 4 vehicles. There seemed to be other spillover spots before private property signs started to come into play again.
Our drive from Anna Ruby Falls to Minnehaha Falls took about 50 minutes.
Alternately, we could’ve driven up from Toccoa via the Hwy 17-Alt then US 441, then cutting across on Old GA 441 before driving on Lake Rabun Rd towards the turnoff for the unpaved Low Gap Rd. We ended up heading to Toccoa after visiting this waterfall so we could tell you that it took us about 45 minutes to go this route.
Finally for some geographical context, Toccoa was 50 miles (over an hour drive) north of Athens and 94 miles (90 minutes drive) northeast of Atlanta.
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Right to left sweep of the falls
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Better in person than in a picture August 8, 2014 9:25 pm - No offense meant to the photographer, these are great pictures, this was just much more spectacular to me than it looks here. Part of that is the non-crowded setting- I was all alone here for an hour, much better than Anna-Ruby or other "public" places. Minnehhaha is worth the trip for sure. FYI I read… ...Read MoreVisitor Reviews of this Waterfall:
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