Windy Gap Trail
A multi-use trail for hikers, mountain bikers, and dirt bikes, climbing two thousand feet to the top of Grassy Mountain.
Photo by Shiloh Spry
- Distance
- 5 mi one way
- Elevation gain
- 2,000 ft
- Trail type
- Out & Back
- Difficulty
- Strenuous
- Crossings
- No crossings recorded
- Best season
- Spring through fall. Closed January through March.
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
Windy Gap is not a quiet hiking trail. It is a multi-use route shared with dirt bikes and mountain bikes, open to a mix of traffic that most of the trails in this guide do not see. It starts as a wide, multi-purpose woods trail and narrows into a steep climb, gaining about two thousand feet over about five miles on its way to the top of Grassy Mountain. Continuing to the fire tower makes it about six and a half miles one way, and a separate branch runs about six miles toward Lake Conasauga.
ATVs are prohibited above the junction with Milma Creek Trail, and vehicles beyond that point are limited to dirt bikes under fifty inches wide. The whole system, including the connecting Milma Creek and Tibbs Trails, closes for the winter from January through March. This sits outside the designated wilderness, which is the only reason motorized use is legal here at all.
Marquee feature
A multi-use OHV trail climbing to the summit of Grassy Mountain
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