parks to watch

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources identifies these Georgia State Parks as the Top 10 for fall color. They’re listed here in alphabetical order.

Amicalola Falls State Park

Nearby community: Dawsonville

Features: Amicalola Falls is the tallest cascading waterfall in the Southeastern U.S., the state park system says. A short walk leads to a boardwalk providing views. The park also offers activities ranging from stories around a campfire to zipline rides.

More information: amicalolafallslodge.com

Black Rock Mountain State Park

Nearby community: Clayton

Features: Black Rock is Georgia’s highest park. Roadside overlooks and the visitors’ center offer views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. More information: gastateparks.org/BlackRockMountain

Cloudland Canyon State Park

Nearby community: Rising Fawn

Features: Cloudland provides views of the canyon and the sandstone cliffs of the Cumberland Plateau. A hike that includes a long staircase takes you into the canyon to see waterfalls (and then, offering more of a challenge, makes you hike back up to return to your car).

More information: gastateparks.org/CloudlandCanyon

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South Cobb Drive

October 2016 and the 32,481 in October 2015, Becker said. Other parks pull in even more fall color fans, who often are referred to as “leaf peepers” or “leaf lookers.” Tallulah Gorge State Park, for instance, attracted nearly 50,000 visitors last October, or about 15 percent of the total number who visited the park during the year, according to figures from the Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites Division of the Department of Natural Resources. Cloudland Canyon State Park pulled in about 35,000 visitors last October, about 18 percent of the total for the year.

To help fall color fans decide where to look for the best views, the state parks system maintains a “leaf watch” webpage and a Facebook page. This year, the parks division also is ramping up its Instagram and other social media so parks visitors can post their own photos for others to see, providing real-time surveys of which parks are peaking. “People are looking for that peak, when [the leaves] are really vibrant and really bright,” Becker said.

So what’s Becker expect from the leaves this year? “We’ve had a lot of rain this year,” he said, “so I’m expecting it to be pretty nice this year, with high visitation and pretty nice colors.”

To spread the word on which park is at its fall leaf-color peak on any given weekend during leaf-viewing season, the state parks service operates the “leaf watch” web page at gastateparks.org/leafwatch and a Facebook page at facebook.com/georgiastateparks.