Benton MacKaye Trail – Big Frog
The Benton MacKaye Trail's route across Big Frog Wilderness, sharing tread with several of the wilderness's other trails.
ThumbnailThis is a reference photo, not this trail. Have a photo of it? Post it in the Cohutta Wilderness Facebook group and it may end up here.
- Distance
- 6.2 mi one way
- Elevation gain
- Not recorded
- Trail type
- Point to Point
- Difficulty
- Strenuous
- Crossings
- No crossings recorded
- Best season
- Spring through fall
Wilderness status
Inside Big Frog Wilderness
Bicycles
Bicycles are prohibited on this trail. Mechanized transport, including mountain bikes, is banned in designated wilderness under federal law by the Wilderness Act of 1964. This is enforced by the Forest Service. Do not ride here.
The trail
The Benton MacKaye Trail does not have its own separate tread through Big Frog Wilderness. Instead it runs along stretches of Big Frog Trail and other routes here, in part or in whole, which is why official trail data credits it with 6.2 miles inside the wilderness without a dedicated trail number of its own.
Through hikers on the Benton MacKaye pass through here already deep into a long trail, connecting the Georgia approach sections covered elsewhere in this guide to the Tennessee side of the range.
Marquee feature
The long-distance Benton MacKaye corridor crossing Big Frog Wilderness
Getting there
Forest Service roads to the Cohutta trailheads are gravel, seasonally gated, and often without cell service. Download directions before you leave pavement.
Access roads and winter closures
Open trailhead in Google Maps
Stay near the trailheads
Sherpa Camp — a cabin at the edge of the wilderness.
The drive in from Atlanta or Chattanooga is long enough that most people are better off sleeping near the gate than starting at 4 a.m. Sherpa Camp is a small cabin on Holly Creek, on the western edge of the Cohutta Wilderness, about 25 minutes from Ellijay. It sleeps five, with a covered porch, a firepit, and a creek. Cell service ends before you get there.
See Sherpa Camp