Camping at Tallulah Gorge

If you remember, Halloween 2020 was the year people were putting together PVC pipes to limit contact and slide candy out to their neighbors. Jacob has asthma so we had to be very careful at the time. We decided to break the normal routine and do something that didn’t make us feel like we were missing out. We went primitive camping at Tallulah Gorge and dressed up at Jurassic Park characters.

There was a major storm before we went up north that knocked off all the colorful fall foilage, but it also knocked out power to the area. Since we were already planning to be without power, we were permitted into the state park and practically had the place to ourselves.

Here is what we did and saw…

Camp Site

There are two backcountry sites in Tallulah Gorge State Park. We stayed on site 3 (site 1 is a pioneer group camp site) which can accommodate up to 6 people. Parking was about a mile away from the camp site, so we hiked in with all of our supplies. There was no electric nor water. For that reason, we brought additional supplies. Since we had a 3 and 5 year old with us, we made sure to bring potty essentials.

• 11 person tent with screen room

• Tarp

• Twin air mattress

• Mess kit

• Ceramic mugs

• Camping stove

• Stove (for coffee)

• French press

• Hammocks

• Roasting sticks

Primitive Camping Extras

• Popup pod

• Compostable toilet bags

• Toilet seat

The site had a picnic table and a 3-sided elevated Adirondack shelter. This was nice for unloading our items before we had our site set up. The site is relatively secluded. We only saw the people who were staying at site 2. They were smart and brought a wagon to cart their items.

Our Core 11 person tent is one of my favorite camping supplies. It has a screened front room that we used to keep our personal bags and used to take off and put on our shoes before going into the inner room or leaving the tent. The inner room is where we slept. Having the two rooms was nice because we had the space we needed, but having a smaller sleeping area helped us stay warm at night.

We set up the popup pod and potty essentials behind the Adirondack shelter for privacy. We left our water jugs on the wooden flooring of the shelter.

The Views

Tallulah Gorge is two miles long and nearly 1,000 feet deep. We hiked the rim trails to several overlooks and took the stairs down to the suspension bridge. Here are the hikes we did…

• North and South Rim Loop

• Gorge Trail to North Rim Trail Loop

Hurricane Falls and the suspension bridge were my favorite views. Standing at the overlooks on the rim trails was also breathtaking.

Halloween Costumes

• Youth indoraptor costume

• Youth t-rex costume

In addition to the costumes, I like to make the boys custom tees for our vacations. These serve as souvenirs and nice reminders of the memories we made when we get back and they wear them again.

• Boys raglan tees

  • Cricut Design Space link for Tallulah Gorge design

• Womens orange and black lace sweater

• Men’s flannel shirt

When the boys were younger I used to make them a custom coloring book for each road trip we took. The books always had a cover page featuring the trip destination, a calendar showing how long we’d be gone, and a map with landmarks or city names along the way so they could reference where we were. Here are screenshots of the book I made for this trip.