Conasauga River Trail #61
Under six miles with almost no elevation change, the easiest river walking here.
Photo by Mark Oleg Ozboyd
- Distance
- 5.7 mi round trip
- Elevation gain
- 164 ft
- Trail type
- Out & Back
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Crossings
- 6 crossings
- Best season
- Year round.
Wilderness status
Outside the wilderness
Bicycles
Bicycles are permitted. This trail lies outside the designated wilderness boundary. Yield to hikers and expect two-way traffic on blind corners.
The trail
Conasauga River Trail #61 starts at the trailhead off Peavine Sheeds Creek Road (FS 221) and runs south along the river on a very old railroad grade, close enough to the bank that a number of side paths drop down to swimming and wading spots. It's mostly singletrack now, wide near the trailhead where day users access the river, narrowing through the vegetation the farther out you go.
The trail stays mostly flat with a half dozen or so small to medium creek crossings, some churned up by horse traffic. Roots and rock keep it from being a true rail trail. Toward the far end there are rock walls to the left where the old grade was cut straight into the terrain. The trail ends at a ford of the Conasauga where it turns into the Iron Mountain Trail, which climbs steeply from there.
Marquee feature
Nearly flat riverside walking
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 MapsLoops that use this trail
- Iron Mountain and the Conasauga in Tennessee
11.6 mile loop
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