Happy Fourth of July from Wilderness View and Ellijay Cabin Rentals!

Looking for the best fireworks in the North Georgia area? Well, luckily for our guests, they don’t have to go far. Just down the mountain, in downtown Ellijay, an exciting amount of activities are planned, and of course, fireworks afterwards!

Festivities start at 6:00 (including the parade) but be sure to get there early to ensure you get parking! Many of the shops around the square will be open later than normal and there will be a variety of booths set up that include local foods, crafts, activities, and information about the area.

Looking for something with a little more music and full of entertainment?

With Mustang Sally performing, and Darryl Rhoades with his comedy routine, there is sure to be plenty of entertainment going on! Great views of the fireworks, too! Buy tickets ahead of time and save $5.00!

Summer is the Best Season at Fort Mountain State Park!

Whether you are staying at Wilderness View Cabins or Ellijay Cabin Rentals to enjoy a vacation or visiting the area to look at buying property, everyone should visit Fort Mountain State Park in the North Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains. During the Summer and Fall, the park is full of activities for adults and children!

Scavenger Hunt: Saturdays 10AM-11AM through October 25th, 2014

Find interesting information about nature on the mile-Long Lake Trail. Closed toe shoes are required.  Hunt starts at the Naturalist Area.

Guided Hike: Saturdays 11AM-2PM through October 25th, 2014

Explore a trail with a knowledgeable guide of Fort Mountain State Park. Closed toed shoes are required. Sign up in office.

Kid’s Activities: Saturdays 1:30PM-2:30PM through October 25th, 2014

Meet in the Naturalist’s Room where kids can participate in a variety of activities involving the outdoors and nature.

Guided Wagon Ride: Saturdays 3:00PM-4:00 PM through October 25th, 2014 AND Sundays 2:00PM-3:00PM through October 26th

Join the staff of Fort Mountain State Park for a guided tour around the park. Pick-Up and Drop-Off will be located at Pavilion #1. Register and pick-up tickets at the front office.

Campfire Cooking: Saturdays 7PM-8PM through October 25th

Learn how to make a variety of tasty treats around the campfire! Sign-up in office.

Morning Meditation: Saturdays 9AM-9:30AM through October 25th

Morning Meditation at the concession stand. Meet at Shelter #2 at 9 AM. Variety of choice CD’s let by an ordained minister.

Sunday Afternoon Hike: Sundays 3PM-4PM through October 26th

Explore one of the many trails located in the park. Closed toe shoes are required. Sign up in office.

During Summer, visitors can cool off on a lakeside beach after visiting the mysterious 855-foot wall, hiking the trails, or biking on the mountain!

Is volunteering more your speed? Georgia State Parks are always looking for volunteers for a variety of jobs! Visit Friends of Georgia State Parks to read more!

Cartecay Vineyards

Cartecay Vineyards

Looking for live music? Wine tasting? Beautiful views of the North Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains? ! Among the many activities to take part in around the area, Cartecay Vineyards should be on everyone’s list! Whether you are a wine lover or trying to find just the right taste, visit Cartecay Vineyards and you won’t be disappointed!

NW Georgia’s Newest Festival Blooms In May

Apple Blossoms at Red Apple Barn Ellijay, GA.

Gilmer County is well-known for its Apple Festival in the Fall. It’s about the only time of the year traffic is bumper-to-bumper on 515 between Jasper and Ellijay!! And while the apples taste great and are truly something to celebrate – the apple blossoms deserve a little ballyhoo, too. Enter Northwest Georgia’s newest festival.

The Georgia Apple Blossom Festival will be held May 3 & 4, 2014 in East Ellijay on Craig Street parallel to Highway 515. The event will feature some of the best arts, craft and food vendors in the region. It’s pet-friendly and there’s no cost for admission. Also, plenty of free parking will be available and a number of great restaurants are within walking distance of where the Georgia Apple Blossom Festival will be taking place. For those visiting the area, you’ll get a taste of Gilmer County that in the past only locals have enjoyed. For area residents, please come out and have some fun, while supporting your community. If you’re interested in being a vendor, or learning more about the festival, go to The Georgia Apple Blossom Festival website for additional information.

The Train Ride You’ll Never Forget

It’s the inevitable question. That one query that creeps into our conversations with guests a few times a day: what’s a fun way to spend an afternoon around here? On cue, we reel off a list of adventures and couch potato neutralizers that would make the staff at the chamber of commerce pound their chest with pride.

There’s horseback riding, white water rafting, trout fishing, hiking, biking, the Georgia Wine Highway and my personal favorite: shopping! After that, there’s shopping. But hence I digress.

Perhaps the one thing this area has to offer that you can’t find anywhere else is … wait for it .. yep, it’s the area itself. Even the most on-point descriptions of the Blue Ridge foothills fail to capture the area’s history, mystic and allure. You truly do just have to see it and take it all in. And when you come here, immerse yourself in the area. A great way to do that is a ride on the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway.

The train route careens along the scenic Toccoa River, with a two-hour stop at the Georgia-Tennessee line. The railway features open-air cars as well as enclosed, with snacks and beverages available to buy on the train. The history of the railway is interesting as well, and there’s even a book available, Along The Way Blue Ridge Scenic, which details how the railway came to pass – and how BRSR is able to still oeprate today. For tickets and departure times, go to

Wilderness View Cabins: Owners Retool Company

It happens at least five times a day. Someone will ask about one of our cabins, and when we tell them we also operate a bed and breakfast – they seem surprised. They often comment how ‘that’s a lot.’ These days, the owner of Ellijay Cabin Rentals, Robert Coleman, agrees. Fifteen years is a long time to own, develop and manage a luxury cabin rental business and an upscale, six-room bed and breakfast. For years, Robert and his wife, Liz, have been juggling family obligations with the fierce demands of running a successful property management business. Their daughter just turned six and with the business, Robert and Liz are on call 24/7. They have a strong work ethic and there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

Several years ago, Robert began revising his business plan. Selling everything and leaving was never an option. Robert and Liz have worked too hard to build their company. But, like all of us aspire, they’re ready to step into the next phase of their success and have more time to enjoy –life-. Here’s what they’ve decided: over the course of the next few years, they will sell two cabins a year, until they no longer own any of the rental property offered by Wilderness View Cabins, a subsidiary of Ellijay Cabin Rentals. They’ll still manage the cabin rental property, but the cabins will belong to a new group of owners. It’s a sound investment.  The cabins have remained profitable and held their value even through the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Plus, the properties are among the most prestigious and bankable in the North Georgia cabin rental industry. Coleman has also priced the properties to sell, which affords him the luxury of being selective when it comes to choosing a buyer. It’s an interesting plan.

It will be up to the buyer to pick which cabin they want to buy. But just as the buyer will choose the property, Robert is looking for certain attributes in a buyer. Primarily, he wants someone who isn’t solely looking for some quick cash flow from an investment property, but a new owner who loves the area and will put his or her own unique stamp on their cabin. In a nutshell, he’s looking for someone who wants to make the property even better than it is today. The ripple effect is that more tourists will visit the area for at least one to two nights. The longer they stay, the more money they will spend shopping and dining in the area. But it all starts with lodging. Wilderness View Cabins have provided luxury accommodations for years. The business is already established with a mile-long list of repeat customers.

If you are interested in learning more, call Robert Coleman at: (706) 517.8810. To get a detailed description of each property and to learn about land for sale, go to http://www.georgia-mountain-property.com. In the meantime, here’s a short list of available cabins:

• Grandview Lodge         5.38 acres        $269,000         4 bedrooms, 3 full baths, hot tub
• Coyote Bluff                 5.02 acres        $199,000         2 bedrooms, 2 full baths, hot tub
• Raccoon Lodge           5.20 acres        $249,000         2 bedrooms, 2 full baths, hot tub
• Shanty Creek              1.34 acres        $119,000         1 bedroom, 1 full bath, hot tub
• Sassafras Ridge          1.83 acres        $139,000         1 bedroom, 1 full bath, hot tub
• Laurels Rest                5.73 acres        $139,000         1 bedroom, 1 full bath, hot tub
• Ananda                        3.43 acres        $139,000         1 bedroom, 1 bath, 1 hydrotherapy tub, 1 dry sauna

Team-Building: Invest In The Right Environment

A friend of mine recently went on an employee retreat. She’s fairly new to the company and was really looking forward to spending time with her coworkers, getting to know them better. I spoke with her before she left and she was so excited. They were staying at the trendy Regis hotel in downtown Atlanta and one of the group activities was a cooking class. I have to admit, I felt envious. It sounded like so much fun. I spoke with her after she got home and she told me the weekend was miserable. She felt alienated. The “team” building exercise was in fact polarizing. Instead of creating an environment in which leaders are allowed to emerge, she spent the weekend in a social setting feeling ostracized. My friend and her colleagues had merely traded an office setting for an environment which heightened elitist competition: the very thing that tears a group apart. Status and pecking order splinter a team; they smother the very embers of bringing coworkers together.

I felt badly for her and wished her associates would have come to The Overlook Inn for their outing. It’s the perfect facility to enhance the message, ” if one of us fails, we all fail.” First, you’re out in the mountains. There’s not a lot of social pretense in a relaxed setting with the Appalachian foothills for as far as the eye can see. Nature is humbling. It reminds you there’s more to life. It enables you to step back, analyze the “big” picture and think more clearly. Next, the Inn has a main area called the Council Room that’s a perfect setting for meetings. Again, it’s a relaxed backdrop in which the art work is nature. There are hiking trails all around the Inn with magnificent, breath taking water features. Workers could go on a hike and enjoy a picnic. Break down the walls and actually see one another in a down-to-earth setting. The Inn is equipped with two kitchens in which a gourmet, three-course breakfast is prepared daily. We could offer cooking classes as well. Or spend an hour around sunset on the stone-step back porch offering a fun wine tasting session, in which guests could sample a large variety of work from scores of Georgia vineyards and a selection of cheese from a regional dairy.

If you want to bring people together, consider truly changing the work environment. The benefit is – when your team goes back to the office, the environment there will be different, too. For more information, call (706) 517.8810.

Fishing Forecast: Trout Season Nears

The one that got away? Not this month. Not in this area. The official start to the 2014 trout fishing season is almost here. Which means the state Wildlife Resources Division and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are stocking nearby streams with rainbow, brown and brook trout. Here in the southern Appalachian Mountains, there are roughly 4000 miles of creeks, inlets, rivers and waterways the state has designated as trout streams. Some are on private properties. Others, with public access, host a strong population of stocked, holdover and stream-bred trout. Put it all together and you’ll find some of the best trout fishing in the entire southeast.

Locals all have their favorite honey holes. You’ll find several streams described below with some helpful information for anglers. One vacation site that comes highly recommended by guests at Ellijay Cabin Rentals is our property called Trout Retreat. It’s a three-bedroom cabin located in a gated mountain development, with the back door nestled just 10 feet from Turniptown Creek. You can literally walk out the door and catch dinner!! With so many remarkable trout fishing streams criss-crossing our northwest Georgia community, there’s no reason to limit your adventure to just one. Here are several worth visiting:

Rock Creek
The Chattahoochee National Fish Hatchery is located on one of Rock Creek’s tributaries, making it perhaps the most heavily-stocked trout stream in all of Georgia. In fact, it is the 9-inch stocked trout that make Rock Creek such a popular fishing destination for families with aspiring young anglers. Most of the fish caught are rainbows and the success rates are fairly high. Most of the fishing on Rock Creek is done off of the bank and wading. Rock Creek flows through the Chattahoochee National Forest and the Blue Ridge WMA, but it’s easily accessible off Highway 60 in Fannin County.

The Jacks River
The Jacks offers a completely different trout fishing experience than Rock Creek. It is the largest stream inside the vast Cohutta Federal Wilderness Area and WMA. Because it is not easily accessible and requires a short hike along a mountain trail, the Jacks is a perfect destination for the angler who hates crowds. There are other rewards as well. The Jack’s is not stocked and is home to wild rainbow, brown and brook trout. Several brown more than 20 inches in length have been pulled from the area around the Jack’s 60-foot waterfall. Jimmy Jacobs, a Georgia native who has written several guidebooks on fishing, including Trout Fishing In North Georgia, ranks the Jacks as one of the premier back-country fishing destinations in the East. “The best fishing is from the falls upstream, so you could try going in at Beech Bottom,” suggests Jacobs.

Joe DiPietro, an outdoor writer and guide based in Fannin County, offers this tip when fishing on the Jacks; “When fly-fishing the Jacks, always try to match the hatch, no matter what time of year it is. If you’re tossing plugs or spinners, try gold, chartreuse and black as primary colors of your lures.” To book a trip with DiPietro, call (706) 633-0890.

The Conasauga River
The Conasauga is considered by many respected fishing guides to be among the top 100 trout streams in the nation. You can fish the Conasauga year-round for more than just trout. The river is actually 93 miles in length, but a 15-mile pristine stretch of the Conasauga within the Cohutta Wilderness Area is known for its rainbow and brown trout, and Georgia’s only truly native trout species, the diminutive brook trout. The Conasauga is not stocked and while rainbow trout are dominate, the larger trout are brown. The DNR says the best trout fishing here is generally upstream where the Conasauga converges with Little Rough Creek. In the upper river, anglers can find rainbows and browns from about 6-14 inches, with the occasional brown trout topping 20 inches. Brook trout are in the headwaters and smaller tributaries at elevations typically above 2,500 feet.

Noontootla Creek
Noontootla Creek may not offer the best trout experience for the beginner. It’s not been stocked since the 1960s and has a sustainable population of wild rainbow and brown trout. It’s primarily a catch-and-release freestone stream. No live bait is permitted and anglers can only harvest one fish larger than 16 inches per day.

Noontootla is the biggest tributary of the Toccoa River. Most of the Noontootla’s public access is off of U.S. Forest Road 58, and it includes everything from small stream fishing in its headwaters to bigger areas capable of being fished with 9-foot fly-rods. The creek has three small tributaries in its headwaters which start at about the 3000 feet level. The tributaries are Chester Creek, Stover Creek and Long Creek. They join at an area called Three Forks. These streams are said to contain native brook trout. The property outside the Blue Ridge Wildlife Area is private. Contact Unicoi Outfitters to arrange a guide service to fish in private waters.

The Toccoa River
From its headwaters in Union County to where it becomes the Ocoee River at the Georgia/Tennessee line, the Toccoa is regarded by many as the best trout river in the state. The upper end of the river is a great place to fish as it is heavily stocked in the springtime and is home to a delayed-harvest (DH) section, which opens to harvest May 15. The tailwater, beneath Lake Blue Ridge, holds a wonderful population of stocked, holdover and stream-bred trout.
This could be a pivotal season for the Toccoa. As we all known trout are a cold-water species. The trout population in the Toccoa was dramatically reduced in 2010, when warm water was released into the river as some necessary repair work was taking place on the Blue Ridge Dam. Wildlife experts have worked diligently to restock the Toccoa and their efforts are paying off. But most of the trout still remain on the small side.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources publishes a comprehensive trout fishing guide to Georgia, available at the Welcome Center. Also, click here for more information on lake levels and releases.

Robert’s Trail

Those unexpected, little “ah ha” moments are everywhere. Too bad we miss so many because we’re thinking about what we’ve yet to accomplished and everything else we still need to do. I know you know the feeling. Who doesn’t? But something happened a few weeks ago I can’t seem to stop thinking about. My sister decided to try one of the many hiking trails around The Overlook Inn near Fort Mountain State Park. There are literally hundreds of hiking paths. Only, the one she chose, is called “Robert’s Trail.” It’s named after the owner of Ellijay Cabin Rentals, Robert Coleman. He built the trail several years ago during a time of personal transition when Robert decided to give up smoking, a grueling work schedule and a diet so unhealthy it would likely stymie the common badger, an animal known to eat just about anything.

He created the trail with a dual purpose: to get exercise and encourage guests to take in all the natural beauty of the property. Check and check: both objectives beautifully achieved. Without question, the trail isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s strenuous, and that’s being generous. But then, that’s also just the physicality. Emotionally, it’s a different kind of workout. My sister described her journey as a “zen-like” experience.

The trail starts with a pagoda and a Geisha bench where you can momentarily pause and reflect. The trail is wide and easy to walk My sister described the sound of the wind dancing through the trees. And soon, the burbling coo of water rushing over the rocks in an adjacent creek joined in harmony. She then reached the first of the trail’s five hallmarks; each a water feature more spectacular than the last. But as you progress, so do the obstacles, making it a little more challenging to get to the next treasure.

The same is true in life, isn’t it? There are obstacles and uphill climbs. But if you persevere, there are also rewards. In this case, a more brilliant water feature and the better the trail. There are stepping-stones. The trail dips into a valley and then demands an upward climb. At any point, you can go back. But if you do, you miss something truly special that is unique to where you are standings at that particular moment.

Every day, I get up looking for answers. I guess it’s nice to be reminded that sometimes in the peace and quiet, the answers are there. Sometimes it takes stepping away from the familiar hum of an everyday routine to gain perspective on navigating the trail.

Feeling Better: Relief You’ll Never Find In a Pill

Was it Punxsutawney Phil or General Beauregard who stuck his portly pointed nose out and decried six more weeks of winter? No doubt, one of them was reveling this week when Snowmageddon shut down most of North Georgia. At this point, you have to admit a treadmill looks pretty good next to a run on that slippery, ice-laden sidewalk. But the sidewalk has one advantage that a gym does not: numerous studies show a direct correlation to the positive effect exercising outdoors has your mental health. And it doesn’t even have to be that strenuous. It can be as simple as breathing in the fresh mountain air.

For example, think about how much time we all spend peering into our computers. Naturalnews.com just published a report on a study conducted by the Vision Council. The results show 70 percent of the adults surveyed experienced “digital eye strain,” which stems from too much time spent staring at TVs, tablets, laptop computers and cellphones. The answer? Step away from watching that two-day marathon of The Walking Dead and see if you can survive the walking trails around Fort Mountain.

Laugh if you must, but the last laugh may go to the researchers. Clinicians have logged countless hours studying this topic and the results tell a similar tale. How similar? A few years back, 2000 people took part in a Scottish Health Survey studying outdoor activity. Researchers concluded that outdoor physical activity had a 50 percent greater impact on a positive mental attitude than going to the gym. Fifty percent. The results took even the lead researcher by surprise. Richard Mitchell, Ph.D. is quoted in London’s revered newspaper, The Telegraph, as saying, “I wasn’t surprised by the findings that exercise in natural environments is good for your mental health, but I was surprised by just how much better it is for your mental health to exercise in a green place like a forest, than in other places like the gym. The message to doctors, planners and policy makers is that these places need protecting and promoting.”

About 90 minutes from Atlanta, less than an hour’s drive from Chattanooga