8 Adventurous Activities & Things to Do in Suches, Georgia
The hamlet of Suches sits in Northeast Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, a stone’s throw from where the legendary Appalachian Trail threads through Woody Gap. Home to the historic Woody Gap School and placid little Woody Lake, the community makes quite the launchpad for Blue Ridge adventuring amid some of the most stirring scenery in the Peach State, bar none.
We’ve pulled together some ideas for getting your adventure game on during a Suches, Georgia vacation, marinating in the mountain ambience at one of the many fine vacation cabins The 100 Collection partner – SVR Properties offers in the area.
1. Visit Georgia’s Highest Point: Brasstown Bald
The elevational culmination of the Georgia Blue Ridge, 4,784-foot Brasstown Bald forms a skyland perch with some truly epic views—and it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from Suches.
Trudge up a paved path from the Brasstown Bald Visitor Center through crooked hardwoods and mountain-laurel tangles to reach the summit tower and observation deck, the vistas from which take in a big sweep of Georgia and extend into Tennessee and both Carolinas. If you’re here on a crystalline kind of day, you can pick out the Atlanta cityscape from this rooftop of Georgia.
Admiring the panorama, take a moment to reflect on this mountainscape’s deep and enduring indigenous heritage—including the associations this high country holds with Cherokee mythology of the spirit beings called the Nunnehi (“the People Who Live Anywhere”).
The Brasstown Bald viewshed is never so impressive as when dazzlingly fired by fall colors, or anytime of year when fog blankets the valleys and ravines below, a lowland gauze overlooked by the seemingly endless ridges and knobs above. (Bear in mind the mountaintop itself is sometimes wrapped in mists—bad for views, maybe, but still plenty evocative).
Multiple trails from the summit extend your high-country hiking possibilities, too.
2. DO Go Chasing Waterfalls
Wringing out moisture from the weather systems riding up their slopes, the Blue Ridge Mountains come well-watered indeed, and the tumbling course of their brooks, creeks, and rivers ensures waterfalls and cascades are a dime a dozen in these parts. Waterfall-lovers are spoiled for choices in the Northeast Georgia highlands, needless to say.
First and foremost, there’s the celebrated pour-off of Amicalola Falls, centerpiece of the eponymous state park only about an hour or so from Suches. Dropping several hundred feet at least, the waterfall—whose name probably stems from the Cherokee term ama uqwaleluyi, “place where water thunders”—ranks among the tallest in the Southeast.
Then there’s DeSoto Falls Recreation Area in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, where an easy hike gets up-close and personal with a couple of striking waterfalls on tributaries of Frogtown Creek running off Cedar and Rocky mountains. A trail in Vogel State Park, meanwhile, leads to the lovely fanning cascades of Trahlyta Falls.
Within easy reach of the Suches area, too, are the multiple showstopper waterfalls near Helen, GA, including Anna Ruby Falls (within a designated Forest Service scenic area close to Unicoi State Park) and Double Culvert Branch Falls.
3. Crank Up the Speed With Ziplining & the Georgia Mountain Coaster
Maybe all that waterfall-touring has you hankering to do some plunging yourself. Well, you’re in luck on that front, too!
Multiple ziplining facilities await within day-tripping distance of Suches, for example, including the Screaming Eagle Aerial Adventures treetop courses at Unicoi and Amicalola Falls state parks. Walkable right from Helen’s downtown, the Georgia Mountain Coaster is the first of its kind in the Peach State—and its speedy downhill track is open each and every day of the year, weather-permitting.
4. Make a Pilgrimage to the Southern Terminus of the Appalachian Trail
The southern trailhead for America’s most famous long-distance trek is in Suches’s backyard, and even if you aren’t tackling a thru-hike of the entire 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail—which forays north all the way to Maine—a visit to this starting point is pretty darn special.
You have to work, though, to get there: The relatively farflung trailhead at Springer Mountain—marked by a trail register and bronze plaque—is reached by an eight-mile-long, blue-blazed approach trail out of Amicalola Falls State Park.
5. Hit the Local Mountain-Bike Trails
The rugged slopes and vast backwoods of Georgia’s Blue Ridge country are tailor-made for mountain-biking, and you’ve got loads of trails at your disposal when vacationing in the Suches area. Prime spots include 1,440-acre Chicopee Woods, which encompasses a roughly 21-mile circuit, as well as Amicalola Falls and Unicoi state parks.
6. Commune With the Big Trees
Some of the most glorious temperate forests in the world blanket the coves, hollows, and footslopes of the Southern Appalachians, but true old-growth showing off the immense stature of some of the many native trees here has become rare. Get a taste for the primeval canopy only about 10 miles from Suches in the aptly named Valley of the Giants within the 30,000-acre Cooper Creek Wildlife Management Area, where you can wander among good-sized eastern white pines, eastern hemlocks, oaks, birches, and—most impressive of all—hulking tulip-trees (aka tulip-poplars), one of the largest hardwood species in North America.
The lovely Sosebee Cove Scenic Area, meanwhile—also a short drive from Suches—supports a maturing second-growth forest within which tulip-trees and yellow buckeyes have gotten impressively hefty indeed.
7. Drink in the View From Preachers Rock—and Explore More of the Blood Mountain Wilderness
In addition to serving up one of the handsomest vistas in the region, the hike to Preachers Rock gives you a chance to actually tread along the Appalachian Trail. And it’s a highly doable undertaking: only about two miles round-trip out of Woody Gap, where the A.T. crosses Highway 60 a couple of minutes outside Suches. The route weaves through Lunsford Gap, then climbs the southwestern flanks of Big Cedar Mountain to reach the Preachers Rock outcrop, where you’ll savor a long sightline out over waves of soft-edged highlands.
Big Cedar Mountain lies within the nearly 8,000-acre spread of the Blood Mountain Wilderness, where longer hikes and wilder Blue Ridge backcountry—and the potential for a bit more solitude compared to super-popular Preachers Rock—await. Consider a trek to the highpoint of the wilderness (and where the Appalachian Trail tops out in Georgia), 4,458-foot Blood Mountain itself.
The domelike peak rises just southeast of Slaughter Mountain, the grisly placenames reflecting stories of Cherokee and Muscogee/Creek peoples battling long ago in Slaughter Gap between the two.
8. Paddle (or Pedal) Lake Trahlyta
Less than a half-hour northeast of Suches—and set in the shadow of Blood Mountain—lies Vogel State Park, established in 1931 as one of the formative units of Georgia’s state-park system. Its defining landmark is 22-acre, mountain-cupped Lake Trahlyta, named for a Cherokee woman said to be buried at Stonepile Gap to the south. The park rents a variety of watercraft for plying the lake, from kayaks (single and tandem), canoes, and stand-up paddleboards to Aqua Cycles and pedal boats.
Find the Perfect Luxury Base Camp for Your Suches Adventures
Hopefully the above gives you some idea of the variety of things to do in Suches, GA: from hoofing it along a world-famous footway to dosing up on positive ions at the foot of a surging horsetail waterfall.
Variety, too, is the theme when it comes to the fantastic array of luxury vacation rentals available through local 100 Collection partner SVR Properties. From hilltop lodges to streamside cabins, these fully equipped properties give you a well-appointed home base from which to explore all the Suches hinterland has to offer.
