Tennessee Rock Trail

The Tennessee Rock Trail is the premier hike at Black Rock Mountain State Park—Georgia's highest state park at 3,640 feet elevation—looping to exposed granite outcrops on the park's main ridge with views that on clear days extend into four states: Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The trail climbs from the campground through dense hardwood forest before emerging on the naked granite of Tennessee Rock itself, where the full panorama of the southern Blue Ridge unfolds.

The exposed granite outcrop at Tennessee Rock is a classic Blue Ridge flatrock community, hosting a specialized plant community adapted to thin soils over bare rock: diamorpha (a succulent rare to Georgia), sedum, and resurrection fern carpet the rock surface in wet seasons. The views north and west encompass the Hiwassee River gorge in Tennessee and the Nantahala National Forest ridgelines of North Carolina. Peregrine falcons hunt from the cliffs, and broad-winged hawks stream past by the thousands during the September hawk migration. The strenuous rating reflects the trail's rocky terrain and sustained climbing rather than distance. Fall foliage in mid-October routinely produces some of the finest color viewing in the Georgia mountains.