Cohutta Wilderness — Jacks River Falls, Georgia's Highest Lake & Backcountry Cascades

The Cohutta Wilderness is the largest tract of protected mountain wilderness in Georgia, a rugged 37,000-acre expanse of the southern Blue Ridge about ninety minutes southeast of Chattanooga where the rivers run wild and unbridged. Day one drops into the wilderness on the Beech Bottom Trail to reach Jacks River Falls, a broad two-tiered cascade churning into a deep swimming pool at the heart of the backcountry. Day two climbs the eastern rim for the long Cohutta overlook, visits Lake Conasauga — the highest lake in Georgia, cradled in spruce and hardwood near 3,150 feet — and finishes at the boulder-strewn Emery Creek Falls before the drive home. It is a wilder, less-trodden alternative to the plateau parks, with nights in the mountain hamlets of Cisco and Chatsworth.