Our first stay at the Hike Inn

written Jan 2026 by Jason Cox

My wife and I recently spent two nights at the Hike Inn, a backcountry lodge in the Appalachian Mountains of North Georgia. We loved the trip. We found hiking to be a great conduit for deep conversation, and the inn felt like the perfect amount of comfort. It freed us from worrying about the weather or our meals, encouraged us to get out and move, and fostered a sense of friendly connection with the other guests. As the title of this post implies, we hope to return again in coming years.

Our trip began at the top of Amicalola Falls, which, by the way, didn’t look like much from above – just a small stream tumbling down the side of the mountain. (It is, in fact, the highest waterfall in Georgia at 729 feet, according to Wikipedia.) The trailhead is well-marked, and after a quick peek at the falls we were on our way.

One of the defining features of the Hike Inn, perhaps the defining feature, is that you have to hike 5 miles to get there. I’m not a good judge of the difficulty of the hike – along the way we were discussing the fact that neither of us had hiked 5 miles in about a decade – but I would describe it as moderate. There are plenty of ascents and descents but nothing crazy.

My wife and I each had packs, hers filled with snacks and water and mine filled with our clothes and other random items. To me, one of the big benefits of staying at the inn (as opposed to camping) is that our packs were relatively light. No tents, sleeping bags, pads, meals, or cooking supplies, and only enough water to sustain us on the trail. I enjoy a hike, but the less weight I have to carry, the better. The fact that the inn has showers meant we packed more clothes than we might have otherwise, but not enough to make up for all the gear we didn’t have to bring.

Along the way, we enjoyed having uninterrupted time to talk – a rarity at home with little kids around – and enjoyed the scenery. In several spots the bare tree trunks and dead leaves were interrupted by large areas of evergreen, magnolia-esque trees. The meandering, curved trunks and bright green leaves made the forest feel denser and more alive.

Upon arriving at the inn, we were given the key to our room, a small (maybe 8 ft. by 10 ft.) space with two twin bunks, a fan, a heater, some hooks on the wall, a mirror, a stool, and a few shelves. We also each received a small bag containing bedding and a towel. We unpacked our bags, relaxed a bit, and put the sheets on our beds. Being asked to prepare our own beds was our first glimpse of the inn’s wonderful approach to hospitality: they provide some much-wanted comfort in the backcountry, but they don’t pamper you.

At 5pm we returned to the lobby for the daily tour of the inn. We learned a bit about the history of the place. (Like many good things, it was created as a public project by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and is maintained by a non-profit organization.) The guide also showed us a sunrise viewing area, which we unfortunately never got to enjoy because of cloudy weather, and their composting systems.

After the tour, we had just enough time for a hot shower in the bathhouse before heading to dinner. Dinner is served family style at the inn, and with only 10 guests the first night, we all fit at a single long table. We ate salad, chicken, cheesy scalloped potatoes, green beans, and rolls, with a delicious piece of spice cake for dessert. We stuck around afterwards for a half-hour presentation from one of the staff members about the wildlife he saw on his recent two-week trip to South Africa. Somewhere in there we also ordered sack lunches for the next day, indicating our first and second choice of sandwich on the order form printed onto a brown paper lunch bag. Then we headed back to our room, turned on the heat, got ready for bed, did a bit of reading, and fell asleep.

The next morning we awoke just before 8am and returned to the dining hall for breakfast. (There is a coffee service at 6am for early risers, but we were never among them.) Like dinner the night before, the food was not gourmet but plenty good, certainly far better than anything I would eat when camping. We had eggs, bacon, grits, and my personal favorite, a dense bread with peaches cooked in a skillet, which the staff called peach spoonbread.

During breakfast we talked with other guests about the forecast for rain and debated whether to do our planned day 9-mile (round-trip) hike to Springer Mountain. The rain wasn’t expected to start until after lunch, so we decided to go for it and hurried back to the room to pack a day bag.

Armed with snacks, water, and the sack lunches we had ordered the night before, we set out on the trail. The hiking felt easier than the day before, probably because we weren’t carrying as much stuff. After a couple hours we reached Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. We ate our sandwiches – veggie for my wife, peanut butter and jelly (my second choice) for me – and I enjoyed the included cookie from my lunch. (My wife didn’t get one because it contains peanuts, and she’s allergic.) Then we snapped a few photos and headed back towards the inn. About an hour into the trek back the promised rain hit. Our ponchos kept us mostly dry, but our legs and feet were quite wet by the time we arrived back at our room.

We rested a bit, showered, and set our shoes up in front of the fan in hopes of drying them out before our hike home the next day. Then we grabbed a couple books and walked barefoot – should have brought a second pair of shoes – to the sunrise room, a heavily-windowed building on the eastern end of the inn filled with tables, comfy seats, and card/board games. A few of the women we had talked with at breakfast were anxious to know if we’d made it all the way to Springer Mountain, and they cheered when we said yes. It was nice to have someone rooting for us, even if we’d only just met them the night before.

We initially sat outside to avoid the noise of people playing games inside (several more guests had arrived for the second night), but eventually migrated inside to get out of the chilly air. It wasn’t really that cold for January – temperatures were in the 50s and 60s (F) the whole trip – but the heated sunrise room was warm and cozy. We read and rested until dinner.

Dinner on our second night was salad, rice, chicken, and rolls, this time with lemon cake for dessert. We ordered sack lunches again, plus an extra cookie to take home to the kids, and chatted with the folks around us. We opted not to stay for the presentation (they do a different one every night) and instead headed back to our room to go to bed early. All that hiking wore us out, I guess!

I initially planned to get up early the second day and enjoy a quiet morning, but we both slept until just before breakfast again. We wound up sitting with a large, tight-nit group of guests, so we didn’t talk much, but we enjoyed the eggs, grits, biscuits, and gravy.

After breakfast we returned to our room to pack up for the hike back. We dropped our dirty linens in the large laundry baskets, paid for our sack lunches plus a few souvenirs, and then donned our packs and ponchos for the hike out.

It rained more or less the entire 5-mile walk back to our car. Within 30 minutes, we’d both given up on avoiding the puddles on the trail because our socks and shoes were soaked through anyway. We made good time and good conversation despite the weather and were soon back to the trailhead. We changed into dry clothes in the bathrooms there, took another look at the falls (they were roaring with water from nearly 24 hours of rain), and hopped into the car for the drive back home.