Mount Yonah Day Hike 4K

Our sixteenth hike of the year ... August 10, 2024
Sally & I

It's been awhile ... and wasn't feeling super ambitious - so decided to check out a short-ish popular day hike in Georgia .. Mount Yonah! It's over 2 hours from home - but it was worth the drive. We got to the trailhead around 9:30am and the parking lot was already pretty full! I'll note - that once you make your final left turn . the road turns into a washed-out gravel road. It's passable by pretty much any car - you just have to pick your lines carefully! Once we found a place to park (this is a sizeable parking area - but people were also parking along the roadway) - we hit the trail, The bottom portion of the trail is pretty wide though rocky/rooty in places. Along the way - we saw numerous wildflowers and spider webs (thankfully not across the traill). The first mile or so is pretty easy but once you start the climb - the trail narrows for a bit and you have a couple of scrambly sections (very short and pretty easy). Then the trail widens for a bit before you come to a nice clearing with your first view looking west around the 1.5 mlle mark. Past the clearing .. the trail makes another significant climb (and well I stopped and admired my surroundings a few times) The trail eventually overlaps a road at 1.78 miles ... and at 1.86 you come to another clearing where there's bathrooms (no toilet paper or water is provided) - there's also a sizeable camping area located here (it'd probably be great in the winter when the leaves are off the trees). From here . you can follow the road up to the summit.,. deviated a bit from the road and took a right turn at 2.33 miles up along a rock face and from here to the summit you have some fantastic views looking west and north. We continued along this ... and came out at the summit of Mount Yonah where there were numerous campsites all around the open field that is the summit of the mountain, We walked all around this before settling in at one of the overlooks and took a nap in the hammock (Sally decided to settle in underneath and took a nap as well). After getting a nice rest ... we packed up and headed down the trail.

I decided to head down the road to complete the small loop around the summit. On our way back down .. we stopped by one last viewpoint and decided to lounge again like a lizard on a rock at the 3.25 mile mark. While laying there .. a large bird flew right over me and landed on a nearby tree branch. That's about the only wildlife we saw other than the spiders! We slowly made our way off the summit and back to our car,. And took one last look at Mount Yonah before heading home.

Things to note .. there's several campsites and most of them are hammock friendly (unless you want to camp up in the grassy field on the summit). I created a .gpx file with all the campsites I saw along with some of the viewpoints too. I'd consider this to be a moderate hike - nothing was overly difficult and I saw a wide variety of people hiking it. Take plenty of water ... other than a small stream about a 1/and of a mile in there wasn't any other sources. There's plenty of trees for hanging in a hammock and I wasn't the only one who had a napping idea - so you might want to get there early to get a nice spot to chill. The bathrooms up top were relatively clean ... but very dark once you closed the door and no toilet paper or water was provided. There was poison ivy along the trail - so be aware of that if you're allergic to it. Overall, a great dog-friendly hike and it'd definitely make a great overnight or weekend trip for backpacking especially for a beginner (the only trick is having to carry all your water for the weekend!).