About Toccoa Falls
Toccoa Falls is a pretty 186ft plunging waterfall nestled deep within the Toccoa Falls campus.
Julie particularly liked this waterfall as it had a classical long rectangular shape as well as pretty good flow during our visit in October 2012.
However, I have seen photos of this waterfall not doing so well with lower water flow so perhaps we were lucky.
Experiencing Toccoa Falls
The very easy short walk to the waterfall began behind the Toccoa Falls Books & Gifts store where we had to pay a $2 per person admission within the store in order to proceed through to the back.
The peak of the Autumn colors hadn’t arrived yet during our visit, but there were some leaves starting to change color nonetheless, which added to the scenic allure of the trail and the falls itself.
While large boulders obscured the base of the Toccoa Falls as seen from the trail, we were able to do some additional scrambling to improve our view.
More specifically, we managed to scramble onto some of these boulders to get right up to the very large plunge pool fronting Toccoa Falls.
We’re not sure if you could swim in the pool or not, but I’m sure it would be a very inviting spot on a hot Summer’s day.
There also seemed to be a little bit of a romantic appeal here as we saw quite a few couples just chilling out around the Toccoa Falls.
In addition, there were also artists here painting their perspective and interpretation of the scene.
Tragedies at Toccoa Falls
Speaking of the romantic theme, we learned from a brochure that we picked up here describing a tragic Cherokee legend involving the forbidden love between a princess named Toccoa and the chief of a hostile tribe whose name was Wild Waters.
In addition to the Romeo-and-Juliet-like legends, a different tragedy occurred here in 1977.
That was when a dam broke and suddenly released a lot of water sweeping away many people.
We noticed a memorial containing the names of the people who died here during that flash flood.
And it was heartbreaking to see how many common last names were listed on the memorial indicating that families were decimated during the event.
Authorities
Toccoa Falls resides in the campus of the Toccoa Falls College in Toccoa in Stephens County, Georgia. It is administered by the Toccoa Falls College. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website.
Toccoa Falls College was within the town of Toccoa.
We drove here from Minnehaha Falls so the specific directions were given for that route on that page.
Once we made it to the of Toccoa, we then drove north on Broad St towards Falls Rd, which became Hwy 17-Alt.
After about a mile, we turned left onto Forest Dr, which weaved its way into the Toccoa Falls College campus.
We next followed this road towards a large parking area (I think the college called this section Gate Cottage).
This parking lot was where the gift shop fronting Toccoa Falls was located.
Toccoa was 50 miles (over an hour drive) north of Athens, Georgia, 70 miles (over an hour drive) southwest of Greenville, South Carolina and 94 miles (90 minutes drive) northeast of Atlanta, Georgia.
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Right to left sweep along the stream of the falls from the main viewing area
Bottom up sweep of the falls as seen from the rocks at the plunge pool
Very slow and deliberate bottom up sweep of the falls from the main viewing area
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