Georgia’s Red Top Mountain
Escaping from Atlanta is not as hard as it may seem when you are sitting in downtown traffic. Red Top Mountain Park is worlds away from the busy pace and traffic of Atlanta’s highways but it only about 45 minutes away from downtown. The park is situated along the shore of Lake Allatoona and has many amenities to offer its visitors.
Getting There
The park is located to the northwest of downtown, and it accessible from I75 exit 285. There is a fee of $3 per car to enter the park, which you can pay at the visitor’s center or a few other places in the park.
What to do at Red Top Mountain
When you visit the park you can go: camping, hiking, fishing, boating, biking, picnicking or attend park presentations. Those are at least the highlights, as there are other things you can do too. The facilities that can help you enjoy your visit include: an improved campsite, rental cabins, the marina, boat launches, a swimming beach for the kiddies, putt-putt golf, picnic facilities, a lodge with hotel rooms and a restaurant.
More details about staying overnight – There are a few options, ranging from staying in a lodge hotel room, to renting a cabin to staying in the campground. The lodge offers full service rooms and a restaurant. You can also eat at the restaurant if you are not staying at the lodge. Cabins are one of the nicest places to stay and they cost ~ $100 per night. They are fully equipped with a kitchen and utensils, have complete climate control (heat and air) and also have many other nice features. Best of all the lake is not far from your front door. The campground features 92 sites ($16 to $24) that accommodate many different kinds of camping: tent sites without or water and electric, RV sites w/full hookups.
The Marina – There is a privately managed full service marina within the park. They rent boats, boat slips, and have a full range of boating services.
Hiking and Biking in Red Top – There are six nice trails in the park that cover more than 15 miles. They can take you through the forest, through fields and along the edge of the lake. The longest path is a shared use bike and hike path. It passes through an area that was once an mining community. At one point iron ore, both mining and smelting, was a booming business that fueled the local economy.
This is just a taste of what you can do in the park. The best thing you can do to learn more is to visit yourself and see what you can find there.
Here are some other places like Red Top that I have gotten out into and find to be nice. Enjoy!