My wife and I stayed at High Falls State Park on January 14, 2015, as an overnighter on our way to Florida. The park is close enough to I-75 to make it worthy as an alternative to a more expensive hotel or motel, and I had hoped to have time to walk the trail along the river. We took more time en route than I had planned, however, so no time for the hike, but the park was nice, and I’ll probably make it there another time with a couple of spare hours to explore the park more.
T@b at High Falls State Park, northeast of Macon, Georgia
Location / Name: High Falls State Park – River Campground. Located about 30 miles north of Macon, Georgia
Date: 01/14/2015
Site: We stayed in the back loop (Loop D) because the front two bath houses (Loops A and B) were closed for the winter. The views of the river are limited even from the riverside sites. Most sites are pretty level. The drives are gravel, as are the platforms for the picnic tables. Site 88 was quite level, and once you got past it in the road, was a straight back-in to get into the deep site. The utility pedestal is on the correct (driver) side of the site.
Access: The park is only a few miles off of I-75 exit 198 in Georgia. Good route down a somewhat steep, winding road to the campground. Roads thru the campground are mostly one-way (except for the entrance/exit stretch into the back loop) and are wide enough for any regular campground vehicle. There were large motorhomes in the back loop, indicating that low-hanging branches were not a problem – I didn’t notice any, but that was a confirmation.
Electric: Sites have 30-amp or 50-amp service, plus 20-amp service. I don’t know if the 50-amp sites also had a 30-amp connection (I previously assumed all campground would provide 30 if they had 50, but recently saw a campground with only 50- and 20-amp connectors, so 30-amp is not necessarily ubiquitous. In any case, the pull-through sites have 50-amp service, the back-in sites have 30-amp service.
Water: Pedestal for water/electric right alongside the driveway, very nicely located. This seemed to be the case in most sites I checked. Two 30-amp outlets in our pedestal, although one was not working – the breaker wouldn’t reset. There were also 2 water outlets. I wonder if these pedestals were not designed to be shared between two sites, so may be used that way at other sites in the campground. That was not the case at site 88; site 87 had its own pedestal, and the sites were offset enough that it would be unlikely you would be looking out your window into another RV.
I always use a pressure-reducer, and had no issues with water at this campground.
Bathhouse: Clean and clean-smelling bathhouse, but in mid-January with only two or three sites around this bathhouse occupied (and those being Class A motorhomes) it should be easy to keep clean. But they did look well-maintained, not just unused. There was one small shower, along with another in a handicapped stall which also had a toilet.
Loop D Bathhouse, River Campground, High Falls State Park, Georgia
Sewer: Two good dump stations on the way out of the River Campground. No sewage at sites (unless at the Host sites.)
Cell Phone Service: Two bars 4G and 3G Verizon service. No problems with using hotspot.
Trash disposal: Trash cans located at the bath houses.
Cost: $32 per night. When I checked in I got a $6.40 Seniors Discount (20%) refunded to my credit card.
General description of campground:
There are two campgrounds – the River Campground, and the Lake Campground. We stayed at the River CG and did not drive through the Lake CG. This is a nice campground with plenty of sites. There were 3 or 4 hosts. There is a nice playground near the exit area, and lots of open area around the bathhouses and between some of the sites. It is a forested campground, but quite open, with little if any foliage providing privacy. In the back loop there are a number of pull-thru sites. The ones in the middle were largely next to each other, but the ones along the outside of the road had forest on one side. Our site, #88, was the last one in the loop, and is above the river. The adjacent site was close, but there was a large open space from there to the next site. This pair of sites would be very nice for two groups. Unfortunately you cannot reserve specific sites, only a site type, so there would be no advance guarantee you could get the site(s) you wanted.
Nice campground; I would camp here again if I had a reason to be in the area, and a walk along the river to see the falls (no time for that this trip) and canoeing and swimming in the lake might be reason enough.
General description of park/area:
The staff at the park office were extremely accommodating and friendly. They called me about 4 PM to make sure I would be arriving by 5, so they could give me the gate code in case I was not there before the office closed. The park appears to be focused around the small lake formed by an old stone dam in the Towaliga River, and the rapids and falls the drop down from that lake to the more quiet water down by the River Campground. There are some historical ruins of a power house near the River CG, and a trail along the river past the namesake High Falls back up to the office area. I think that trail would be a very nice walk.