A Cache Hike to Anna Ruby Falls (Photo Essay)

The Georgia Geocachers April meeting was being held in a park shelter within Unicoi State Park. It's been over a year since I have hiked and cached in this area of the state and I was eager to revisit the area.

The day began with heavy rain, which was part of the cold front system currently baring down on the New England area. The forcast said that most of the rain in my area would clear out by noon, which meant it was already clear in the North Georgia Mountains when I left the house around 10:30 a.m.

I found a few caches in Dehlonega on the way to the meeting and a few more afterwards in Helen. The main goal for the day was getting to at least one of three remaining waterfall caches, I still had to find in the area, before the state parks closed for the evening.

I had been putting off these caches for the last year due to the draught. Most of the falls were dry or trickles of water, and were not worth visiting this past year. We've had above average rainfall this Spring. So I figured now was a good time to go visit.  I decided on Anna Ruby Falls since it was only 5 miles from where the meeting was being held.

The cache located in this area is called Anna's Ruby Cache. It's a 30-cal ammocan nestled on a mountainside. You actually pass the falls on your way to the packed trail system that leads to the general cache area.

The real challenge here is getting decent satellite lock on your GPS. You're basically hiking within a deep gorge along Smith Creek and have massive mountains on either side of you. My GPS lost total signal about halfway into the hike. Luckily I was hunting this cache with seven other people and some of the units managed to hold signal in the area.

The coordinates to the cache were easily 75 to 135 feet off because of the poor satellite visability area, which makes finding the cache even more of a challenge. However, when you have 8 sets of eyes, someone is bound to come up with the cache sooner or later. It took about 15 minutes for someone in the group to find it.

Total rountrip hike to this cache was just under 2 miles.

It was a beautiful day for this hike to Anna Ruby Falls. The only thing I would have changed is that I would have done this a month earlier before the trees began to bloom. I would have gotten better shots of the falls at that time of the season.

Area Info:

Just north of the Alpine village of Helen, Georgia, Anna Ruby Falls is adjacent to Unicoi State Park. The 1,600 acre Anna Ruby Recreation Area is part of the Chatahoochie National Forest.

The waterfalls are named for the daughter of John H. Nichols, a wealthy White County resident who owned much of the land in the vicinity. Anna Ruby Falls are fed by underground springs and water runoff. The rare double waterfalls of Anna Ruby are formed by Curtis and York Creeks which fall from Tray Mountain. Tray Mountain's peak is the eastern Front Range of the Appalachian Mountains.

The moderate hike to the falls is .8 miles.