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Providence Canyon State Park

Photo: Dsdugan / CC0 1.0 (Public Domain Dedication)

🏜️ Canyons & deserts

Providence Canyon State Park

Lumpkin, GA · Southwest Georgia

About

Sixteen canyons cut into soft Coastal Plain soil here, their walls banded pink, orange, lavender and white from layers of clay and iron, all of it carved in barely 150 years by rainwater running off badly plowed cotton fields. The rim trail looks down into the gorges, then a path drops to the canyon floor where you wade a thin sheet of spring water past 150-foot sand walls. Come in July and August and the rare plumleaf azalea blooms orange-red along the rim, long after every other azalea in the South has gone quiet.

Highlights

16 colorful erosion canyons up to 150 ft deepCanyon Loop Trail (~3 mi rim + floor)Rare plumleaf azalea blooms July-AugOne of Georgia's Seven Natural WondersWade the spring-fed canyon floor

Getting there

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Georgia State Parks18 places

Georgia State Parks

Georgia's state parks pack a remarkable range into one state. Up north there are deep gorges and the tallest cascading waterfall in the Southeast; in the southwest, a pink-and-orange canyon erosion carved out of old farmland; through the middle, mineral springs and CCC-built lodges; and down south, the wild blackwater edge of the Okefenokee. These are the ones worth building a weekend around, from the Blue Ridge to the coast.