With only three days in Columbus, Georgia, we didn’t have much time to explore the local area. Top of our list of things to do was to visit Providence Canyon State Park.
Located in Lumpkin (about 45 minutes outside of Columbus), Providence Canyon State Park is a geological attraction that didn’t exist 200 years ago. In the 1800s, farmers plowed down the hillsides. This was a poor farming technique as it meant that the ditches they created became larger due to rain and erosion. These large ditches became gullies which eventually created Providence Canyon.
The state park has several hiking trails; we picked the canyon loop trail. This is a 2.45 mile loop that takes you briefly down into one of the canyons before heading back uphill and to some scenic overlooks.
There were plenty of parking spaces available the day we visited, although I imagine it’s more full at the weekend and in the summer. After walking past the visitor center, we signed in at the registration spot (n.b. you don’t have to sign out at the end.)
Once signed in, we followed the path down to the canyon floor.
The Canyon Loop Trail is marked with large white blazes, making it easy to ensure you’re on the correct path.
After about 1/4 of a mile, we arrived at the canyon floor. There was a creek bed which made for a bit of a damp crossing.
Thankfully Truffles has black fur, so dirt, clay, etc doesn’t show up as obviously on her. We met someone at the end of our hike whose white dog was half orange – I think they’d followed the creek bed through the canyons though, which is why he was quite so dirty.
We hadn’t planned on going for a long hike, so we didn’t walk through the canyons. Instead, we just followed the trail uphill. It’s a relatively easy trail, although you need to be prepared for a couple of fairly steep uphill sections.
Something we hadn’t expected on the hike were all the rusted out vehicles. A sign explained that there used to be an old homestead on the site and the vehicles were left there to protect the ecosystem.
I think we ended up seeing about 10 rusted out vehicles along the trail. It was fascinating how quickly trees must have grown as there was no obvious way that the cars and trucks could’ve been driven in. Although there’s a trail, most sections weren’t wide enough to have fit a vehicle along it.
We eventually came to a “scenic” lookout that gave us our first view of the canyon from above. I say “scenic” because trees blocked most of the view.
We followed the trail and caught the occasional glimpse of the canyon wall, but trees continued to block most of the good views. I’ll admit, we were both pretty disappointed by this point as we figured that this would be as good as it got.
This seemed to be confirmed when we reached what we thought was the end of the trail. The path had taken us back out to the road which we’d driven in on to get to Providence Canyon State Park. It turned out that our fears were misguided though.
The trail continued round to the left along the fence. This led to an area with better views of the canyon gorge.
As we followed the path along, the views became more impressive. Our apprehension had been misguided – this section of the Canyon Loop Trail provided much better vistas.
Providence Canyon State Park obviously isn’t as impressive as the Grand Canyon, but that took millions of years to be created. Looking down into the canyon, it was amazing to think that this didn’t exist 200 years ago.
After reaching the end of the trail, we stopped in at the visitor center quickly. Before we left, they mentioned that they had a small museum off to the side. This contained more history about the area and how the canyon was formed.
There was also an exhibit about all the wildlife that lives in the park.
Final Thoughts
Providence Canyon State Park is a fascinating place to visit. With a somewhat easy hiking trail, rusted out vehicles providing a sense of recent history and impressive views of the canyon (eventually!), it’s definitely worth visiting.
The great thing is that you don’t even have to hike to get the views. As you drive into the park on Canyon Road, there are several parking areas where you can stop for a picnic. The picnic tables are right next to the second part of the trail, meaning you can walk along the flat path to get the same views of the canyon that we saw.
In hindsight, I wish we’d spent a few extra hours exploring the canyon floor as that would’ve given us a different kind of view of the canyon walls.
However, the short hike meant we had time to head to Plains, Georgia – the home of the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site.
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