7 North Georgia Towns That Aren’t Worth the Leaf Season Traffic
Ellijay’s Georgia Apple Festival opens its gates on October 10, three weeks before north Georgia’s color even reaches its peak, according to the Georgia Forestry Commission’s Leaf Watch.
You can bet the crowds will show up anyway.
These are the north Georgia towns that aren’t worth the leaf season traffic.
1. Helen
Helen turns its Bavarian storefronts over to the longest-running Oktoberfest in the country every leaf season.
This year’s festival runs from September 10 through November 1, covering nearly the entire leaf season.
The two seasons collide.
Georgia Highway 75, known locally as GA-75, is the only state route running into downtown Helen.
It slows to a crawl on fall Saturday afternoons, once Oktoberfest visitors and leaf lookers hit the road at the same time.
Weekday mornings move faster.
Unicoi State Park, just up the road from downtown, fills its lot on the same fall Saturdays.
Helen’s color doesn’t peak until late October, weeks after the festival tents go up, so the crowding starts long before the leaves do.
When North Georgia’s Color Peaks
North Georgia’s leaf color doesn’t peak everywhere at once.
The Georgia Forestry Commission’s weekly Leaf Watch reports have tracked the high country around Brasstown Bald and Blairsville reaching peak color in the back half of October in recent seasons.
Lower valleys near Dahlonega and Toccoa often hold their color into early November instead.
That gap is why a town’s festival crowd and its leaf crowd rarely peak on the same weekend, even though the calendar lumps them together as one leaf season.
2. Ellijay
The town of Ellijay throws its Georgia Apple Festival across two full October weekends, October 10-11 and October 17-18 this year.
That’s a three-week jump on the leaves themselves, since the Georgia Forestry Commission’s Leaf Watch tracks north Georgia’s color peaking later in the month.
More than 250 vendors line the Ellijay Lions Club Fairgrounds for the 55th year running.
Gilmer County has long called itself the Apple Capital of Georgia.
The orchards around town pull in a separate weekend crowd on top of the festival traffic.
Visitor reviews of the festival routinely describe the backup on Highway 52 as some of the worst traffic of the fall season.
That backup builds weeks before the leaves that give leaf season its name have even started turning here.
It happens every fall.
3. Blue Ridge
Blue Ridge runs its Scenic Railway through its busiest month every October, with two-hour layovers in the sister towns of McCaysville and Copperhill.
Downtown parking fills up fast on peak fall weekends.
The shops and galleries around the depot pull in a second crowd, on top of the train riders.
The city-owned lot off Mountain Street runs $10 a day and jumps to $20 on festival and event days, while free street parking downtown carries a three-hour limit.
Weekend trains sell out days ahead during leaf season.
Weekdays still have room.
Blue Ridge’s depot area wasn’t built to hold a whole month of Saturday traffic.
4. Dahlonega
Dahlonega hosts its Gold Rush Days festival on October 17 and 18 this year, the same weekend north Georgia’s leaf color often nears its peak.
The festival marks the town’s 72nd year celebrating the 1828 gold strike that started America’s first major gold rush, two decades before California’s.
More than 300 vendors circle the Public Square for it.
The state later covered its capitol dome in gold mined from these hills, a detail Gold Rush Days visitors hear again and again.
Admission stays free.
Dahlonega reroutes downtown traffic around the Square for the weekend.
Rooms within 20 miles of Dahlonega book out months ahead of the festival.
Psst! How much do you know about the north Georgia mountains? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Quiz
North Georgia Mountain IQ
Answer these questions on the north Georgia mountains and their history. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
Georgia’s highest point, Brasstown Bald, tops out at what elevation?
5. Blairsville
Blairsville hosts the Sorghum in the Mountains Festival the same two October weekends as Ellijay's Apple Festival, this year October 10-11 and October 17-18, at Meeks Park.
Sorghum syrup demonstrations, a parade, and bluegrass music fill the park both weekends and draw visitors from across the region into a small mountain town.
That fills every parking spot near the park fast.
Early arrival helps.
Blairsville sits in the high country around Brasstown Bald, the same stretch the Leaf Watch has clocked reaching peak color in the back half of October.
The festival's second weekend lands right as that high-country color starts turning, so Blairsville's leaf crowd and its festival crowd increasingly share the same October weekend.
6. Tallulah Falls
Tallulah Falls sits right on US-441, home to Tallulah Gorge State Park and one of the deepest canyons east of the Mississippi.
The gorge itself runs two miles long and nearly 1,000 feet deep, crossed by a suspension bridge that sways 80 feet above the rocks.
The park's rim trails put hikers eye-level with the canyon walls' color, so the main parking lot fills up fastest during the same weeks leaf season peaks.
Only 100 gorge-floor permits go out each day, first come, first served.
Arrive at opening.
If you show up after 10 a.m. on a Saturday in late October, the permits may already be gone.
Tallulah Falls' only gathering spot is the gorge itself, so anyone waiting on a permit waits inside the same crowd, not somewhere else downtown.
7. Toccoa
Toccoa closes down its Main Street for the Harvest Festival on October 24 and 25 this year, weeks before the town's valley color typically peaks in early November.
Close to 10,000 people and more than 160 vendors fill those two days, according to Main Street Toccoa.
Downtown shops and restaurants stay open through both festival days, right alongside the vendor tents.
The whole town fills up.
Currahee Mountain overlooks the whole scene, the same peak where World War Two paratroopers trained at Camp Toccoa ran three miles up and three miles down for conditioning.
Downtown Toccoa has no bypass route around the festival, so the crowd and the traffic share the same two blocks all weekend.
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