The Tallulah rim in August haze

Tallulah is about two hours north of Atlanta, which puts it at the outer edge of what counts as a morning trip and means leaving the city around half past four in August.

It is worth it perhaps three mornings in five, which is a worse hit rate than anywhere else in this file. When it works it is the most dramatic early hour available within driving distance, and when it does not you have driven four hours to look at a wooded valley.

What makes the haze

The gorge is deep, narrow and holds a river at the bottom. Overnight the air in it cools, moisture from the river and the wet forest stays trapped, and by dawn the bottom third is full of a flat layer of white that sits below the rim like water in a bath.

Then the sun comes up and takes it apart from the top down. The upper surface of the layer starts to break and lift, tears open over the river, and within an hour the gorge is simply a gorge again. That hour is the entire reason to be there.

What decides it is the night before. A clear, still, humid night after a warm day fills the gorge. Wind empties it. A night that stayed cloudy and mild does not build the temperature difference in the first place. The note on reading haze covers how to make that call from a forecast, and it is worth making, because a bad call here costs four hours of driving rather than forty minutes.

The layer does not drift away. It comes apart in place, like something dissolving, and the far wall lowers itself back down onto the river.

Where to be standing

The rim has a path along the north side with a series of built overlooks, numbered, with railings and steps between them. They face different directions, and that matters more than usual because the gorge runs roughly east to west.

The overlooks toward the eastern end look back into the sun as it comes up, which gives you the haze lit from behind and the rock walls in silhouette. The ones further west catch first light landing on the north wall while the bottom is still full and dark. Both are worth having. The walk between them is on steps and gravel and takes longer than the map suggests.

The floor of the gorge is a separate proposition entirely, reached by a long staircase and requiring a permit that is issued in limited numbers on limited days. That is not an early morning activity and it is not what this account covers.

The rim is not a place to be casual

This is a very deep drop with a lot of exposed rock, and people have been killed here.

The built overlooks and the fenced sections of path are safe and are perfectly adequate for everything described above. What is not safe is stepping over a railing, walking out onto sloping rock beyond the marked path, or trying to find a better angle in the dark. Wet rock at the rim, dew, a torch, a camera in one hand and a long drop is a combination with an obvious ending.

The park closes sections of the rim from time to time and the closures are real, not advisory. Water releases from the dam upstream change the river at the bottom on a published schedule, and on those days the noise and the crowd are both completely different.

The drive, honestly

Two hours out in the dark on interstate then two lane road, and two hours back in daylight with everyone else. The return leg is the tiring part and it is the reason not to do this on a day with anything else in it.

There is an argument for staying north afterwards rather than turning straight round: there is more country up there worth a second look and the drive home is easier at two in the afternoon than at ten in the morning.

Was it worth the alarm

Twice out of three attempts, which given the distance is the honest answer rather than an enthusiastic one.

The failed attempt was instructive. The night had been breezy, I went anyway because the forecast said clear, and the gorge held nothing at all. What was there instead was an ordinary and rather beautiful summer morning in the north Georgia woods, which would have been ample if I had driven forty minutes for it and was thin consolation for two hours.

That is the trade with this place. The ceiling is higher than anywhere else within reach and the floor is a long way down.