Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area
Park · Sandy Springs
Park · Sandy Springs
Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area gives families a lightweight free outdoor green-space option connected to Trees Atlanta's neighborhood canopy and stewardship work.
Open green-space access is free.
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The Island Ford unit, site of the park headquarters, offers a popular 2.5-mile loop trail along the Chattahoochee River with excellent trout fishing access and a historic ford that General Sherman's Union Army crossed during the Atlanta Campaign in 1864. The trailhead begins at the Island Ford Visitor Center. Amenities include picnic areas, a boat ramp, and seasonal ranger programs. The river here is designated a Blue Ribbon trout fishery.
Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area is part of Trees Atlanta's community nature and canopy programming, making it more useful as a neighborhood outdoor-learning stop than as a destination attraction.
Many Trees Atlanta volunteer and outdoor-learning events are free.
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Cochran Shoals is one of the most-visited units of the Chattahoochee River NRA, featuring a 3.1-mile multi-use trail popular with runners, cyclists, and walkers, plus river access at a series of shallow shoals. The unit draws hundreds of thousands of visitors annually and includes picnic areas, a fitness trail, and wetland habitat. The Cochran Shoals trail connects to the nearby Sope Creek unit via a river crossing.
Best used as the parent river destination when Yonder needs to orient users to the broader Chattahoochee system and then hand them to more specific access nodes.