Cloudland Canyon State Park -36
10.18.24-10.20.24
Timed the peak colors too early by one weekend.
Cloudland Canyon State Park is located in Rising Fawn, GA on the western side of Lookout Mountain. Known for both its waterfalls and large outlook, the park attracts huge crowds during the fall when the leaves change colors. The park includes all levels of hiking–easy to strenuous. The Overlook is an easy walk down a paved path from the parking lot. The waterfalls can only be accessed by a strenuous hike down about 600 stairs. Cloudland Canyon also offers an 18-hole disc golf course, fishing pond, trails for horseback riding, and a small nature museum. Many caves can be found throughout the park and you can even sign- up for tours from the rangers.
Cloudland Canyon offers all types of overnight experiences with 19 cottages, 10 yurts, 72 camper/tent sites, and 30 walk-in sites. The cottages sit between two of the parks highlights: the main overlook, with its breathtaking views, and the trail down to the waterfall. There is a second set of cabins located near the West Rim Trail. The yurts are all located together in what Cloudland calls the yurt village.
Recently the campground underwent renovations to add sewer hookups to many of the sites. To do this they had to reroute some of the road throughout the West loop and took out MANY trees in the process. Campsites 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14 are long pull-thru, full hookup sites where all of the trees were taken out. In our opinion much of the campground was ruined in these renovations because of the absence of the trees. We always picked West Rim loop because of the woodsy and private campsites that were offered. Now it seems like the majority of the loop is similar to East Rim Campground in that the sites are out in the open.
We previously stayed (2021) in campsite 15 (used to be site 8) and it was our favorite campsite by far. However, now that the trees have been taken out in the sites above it, we don’t think it’s the best campsite anymore. It also now has two huge sewer drains on either side of it. In 2017, our first time taking the camper to Cloudland Canyon State Park, we stayed in campsite 43 (used to be site 40). With all the time spent on the renovations you would think they would work to level out the sites, but maybe it wasn’t possible with this one. It is a large pull-thru and the front end of the camper has to be raised quite high to level the camper.
We reserved campsite 36 this trip based on photos and the field behind the campsite. The site is a 50 ft back-in site with water and electric hookups. The width of the drive is nice and wide, with a designated outdoor space for the picnic table and fire pit. The newly renovated bath house is located a short walk from this campsite. We were able to pick up the wifi at our site from the bath house. The only thing that I did not like about this site was the closeness to campsite 37. It’s an accessible site that backs right up to the picnic table for site 36.
Off the back of campsite 36 is a trail to a large field that can be accessed also by campsites 37, 34, and 32. Those are the only sites that have trails to this large field. This area was great for dog walking, kicking a soccer ball, or letting the kids run around. While we were there, two boys from site 34 threw a football back and forth. Campsite 34 was also nice and had different levels of outdoor living space, but it seemed their campfire area was less private than ours.
Next time we visit Cloudland Canyon State Park we will try to reserve campsite 25, which has the outdoor living area looking into the woods and is private from the campsites on either side. Of the full hookup campsites the only one I would be interested in is campsite 17. Due to the angle of the site, the camper would provide privacy from the road. It has a nice designated picnic table area and steps down to a fire pit. We would also book campsite 36 again as we really enjoyed it.
We left work early on Friday to get to the campground in the daylight. Many times throughout the drive we experienced lost service (both Verizon and AT&T) so make sure you have the GPS pulled up beforehand. The visitors center parking lot did not have enough parking for all of the cars and a couple of campers that came to check in.
Saturday morning we drove over to the main parking lot and hiked the trails down to Hemlock Falls and Cherokee Falls. It was a lot of steps, but our 4-year-old was able to do it all! Plus Heather was carrying the 1-year-old on her back the whole time. You can access these trails from the campground, however it adds quite a bit of hiking to the adventure that we didn’t think everyone in the family could accomplish.
In the afternoon we were able to pick up the Tennessee/Alabama football game with an antenna. Man, that game was fun to watch!
We checked out of the park Sunday at checkout time and arrived at the dump station with no line. That is an advantage to the campground since now many of the sites have full hookups and they can dump at their site.
Friends of Cloudland Canyon State Park were hosting a Fall festival every Sunday from 12-5pm. We wished we could have taken part in the festivities, but we had to be off the campsite by noon that day. Too bad they didn’t offer this on Saturdays.
Friends of Georgia State Parks
The Friends of Georgia State Parks is a volunteer organization that offers a GREAT membership to the parks at a discounted price. We purchased the supporter level that comes with 3 free nights of camping. When we checked in on Friday we actually received a refund of our original $40 payment to use our two free nights. Only stipulation to the free nights is that you cannot use them on a Holiday weekend.
This membership also offers 10% off the rest of our reservations and purchases in the visitor centers. To purchase the membership you can access their website here. We have partnered with them to offer 15% the memberships and a discounted price on the passports. Our daughter loves the passports and getting a stamp at each park. We do wish that Cloudland had their own specific stamp of a waterfall or the beautiful canyon.
