- [Announcer] Funding for View Finders was provided by... - [Outdoorswoman] Let's imagine what outside can be.

- [Outdoorsman] Outside is important.

- It's musical.

(outdoorswoman laughs) - [Outdoorsman] Together, we can create an outside with space for everyone.

- [Announcer] Funding for View Finders is provided by Troncalli Subaru located on Highway 9 in Cumming.

Visit Troncalli Subaru or find out more online at troncallisubaru.com.

(light music) (light music) - [Spokesperson] At Terrapin Beer Company, we make beer for life's adventures, be they far from home or right in your own backyard.

Terrapin, good everywhere, best outside.

(light music) ♪ Over the fence and what do I see ♪ ♪ The grass is in the field waving back at me ♪ ♪ Hidden in the willow, the starling song is just begun ♪ - Starting at 3,407 feet of elevation, - Georgia's most heavily used water resource, - Over 430 miles long, - This is the Chattahoochee River.

I'm Chris.

- I'm Jason.

And we're the View Finders.

- And we're the View Finders.

(light music) (guitar music) - Here we are, Upper Chattahoochee Campground.

It is a very cold fall morning and we got a pretty good hike ahead of us.

- Yeah, it's in the 30s.

- From what you've told me from your earlier hike here when it was warmer weather, this is gonna be very steep, it's about seven miles and there's no real path.

- You gotta little trail for a couple falls, then we're gonna hop off trail.

Right now, we're at about 2200 feet.

We're gonna finish at about 3600.

Lot of that's gonna be side hill walking, a couple creek crossing.

- Oh, that's cold.

And it's gonna be steep the whole time.

- And at the very end, it's just, oh my gosh.

- All right, well, I'm excited.

We started all the way down in the bay.

It was really wide.

There was lots of different flora and fauna and just being out on it, it's nice and warm, too.

And now we're gonna go to the very top where it's just trickling out of the ground.

So that's gonna be a really cool contrast.

(light music) The Chattahoochee River is essential to a wide range of people, businesses and industries, certainly the most notable is the city of Atlanta.

And so it was important for us to see how this river directly impacts the millions of residents in the metropolitan area.

So we're south of Atlanta today and we're about to go out on the Chattahoochee River to learn more about it, understand how important it is to Atlanta.

Jason, what do you think?

What are you excited about?

- Well, it's not the most romantic side of the river, but it's the functional side.

And I think that's why we're here just to talk about what it is to Atlanta and that it's the main water source for the city and actually the largest water source of the state.

- Yeah, I think part of it is just understanding the river as we're tracing it and eventually, we see where it comes from, just learning about how important it is to the state of Georgia, to the citizens of Georgia and to all of the environment, farmers, the agriculture, the animals, the plants that count on it.

So we can't wait to get out on the river.

(light music) - Hi, my name's Jason Ulseth with Chattahoochee Riverkeeper.

We are an environmental nonprofit organization that is dedicated to protecting the Chattahoochee River and the entire watershed that drains to it.

The Chattahoochee provides water supply to 5 million people and starts in the mountains of North Georgia and flows all the way down to the Florida border.

The Chattahoochee River is actually the smallest river that provides a water supply to a major metropolitan city in the entire country.

Here in Atlanta, it serves as a lifeblood of our communities.

It provides our water supply, it assimilates our waste water, provides recreation and so much more that the city of Atlanta could not exist without this river here.

(light music) ♪ But now there's nothing where it once stood ♪ ♪ And I always thought that I'd hid that place ♪ ♪ The city walls have grown too close ♪ ♪ Crowded what I need most ♪ ♪ Do not ♪ - [Chris] Man, this is so pretty.

- [Jason] I know.

- [Chris] Horse Trough Falls, I've heard about it.

I've never been here.

- I'm so excited to do this portion of the river.

When you think of Georgia's largest resource for water, you don't think of that.

- [Chris] No, you don't.

- And I think a lot of people will have a different perception of the Chattahoochee River as they view it as what they kayak on in Atlanta.

So to bring them up into the mountains and see where it all began.

- It's crystal clear.

It's just absolutely stunning.

We don't have our big packs today because of how steep and arduous this climb is gonna be.

So I don't have all of my equipment with me, but I still feel like I got a pretty good image here.

What about you?

- Yeah, I did, too.

There was like a little, some bubbles over here swirling in this little pocket.

- [Chris] That's cool, did you get that?

- Yeah, I got it just enough to see it spin.

- Oh, I bet that's gonna look good.

♪ Do not destroy ♪ ♪ What is mine ♪ ♪ What also ♪ ♪ Is yours ♪ - One of the things that controls the biology of streams and what animals and organisms can live there is the stream temperature.

And stream temperature of course varies throughout the year.

It's gonna be warmer in the summertime just like the air's warmer in the summer.

It's gonna be warmer in the late afternoon 'cause the sun's been hitting it all day than it's gonna be first thing in the morning.

But the temperature of the ground water at any spot is usually pretty similar to the average air temperature at that spot.

It's usually a little bit lower.

In North Georgia Mountains, it's colder than it is in the rest of the state.

Everybody knows that.

You go up there, it's always cooler.

So you really need a stream that doesn't get much above 20 degrees Celsius in the summer and stays in the teens.

And the only place in Georgia that happens is in the North Georgia Mountains.

And that's the only place where we have trout in our streams.

And if you think about the Appalachians as a whole, you always find trout in the Appalachian streams running from North Georgia to Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine.

But of course, it's much colder, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

And those streams hardly ever get to temperatures that stress trout.

But in North Georgia, we're in a much warmer climate and in the summertime, even in a natural forest and stream, the temperatures can get to 18, 20 degrees Celsius in the summer, which gets on the edge of the stress levels for trout, which is why it's really easy if you cut down the riparian forest in a North Georgia stream to essentially eliminate that trout habitat because now you've taken that stream that was 18 or 20 degrees in the summer and now it's 22, 23 degrees in the summer and that's not gonna support trout.

So our trout populations in North Georgia are really living on the edge of their habitat limits.

(light music) - Hi, I'm Jimmy Harris.

I'm one of the owners of Unicoi Outfitters on the Chattahoochee River, just south of Helen.

We have about a mile and a half section of private water here that we manage for trophy fly fishing for trout.

Trout fishing in North Georgia is a surprise to a lot of people.

What's really a surprise is that between the national forest land and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources land and all the private land up here, we've got over 4,000 miles of designated trout water.

That's almost unheard of.

It's a resource that has undergone a lot of stresses over the years.

Over 100 years ago, all of the trees were cut down.

Over 100 years ago, gold mining came in and just strip mined everything.

But nature has just a marvelous way of rejuvenating and reclaiming herself.

- We have a lot of different fish species in our rivers.

I used to live in the Pacific Northwest and if you could find six species of fish in a river, that was pretty high diversity for a Pacific Northwest river.

Those rivers are young.

Here in Georgia, it's not uncommon to go electroshock a stream and find 35 species of fish.

There are a lot of different amphibian species in here.

So one of the things that's cool about the Upper Chattahoochee is that it has a lot of interesting aquatic species.

And a lot of these aquatic species like salamanders, they might breed in the stream, but they live most of their life in the terrestrial ecosystem.

So you have this we think about as an aquatic system, but it's highly tied to the terrestrial ecosystem.

- So is this it?

- This is it, man.

- This is the Chattahoochee River.

It's so different compared to down at Lake Seminole and down in Florida.

It's like every aspect of it from the size to its contribution to the environment, to just the clarity of the water.

- [Jason] Right up here, there's a really cool little shoot that a friend of mine showed me.

And it's so cool.

It's just very different, a lot of rock.

- [Chris] Wow, let's check it out man.

I can't wait to see it.

(light music) ♪ Hold on, hold on ♪ ♪ Hold ♪ ♪ I have traveled so far ♪ ♪ In the wrong direction ♪ ♪ In my mind ♪ ♪ Don't wanna be judged by imperfections ♪ ♪ That don't exist ♪ ♪ When seen in the light, yeah ♪ (light music) ♪ So don't let yourself go ♪ ♪ And be gentle ♪ - I'm curious what these peanut butter and jellys look like.

- I think they've probably taken some significant abuse.

- Mine actually doesn't look too bad.

- Mine has got a...

This looks like a camera battery imprint on it, actually.

- Yeah.

The peanut butter and the jelly is extremely mixed and smooshed together now.

I don't think it looked like this when it left your kitchen.

- It's probably a really good peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

- Well, you know, I don't care what this looks like.

It's gonna taste good because this has been hype.

- Yeah, it has, man, that last stretch getting to this one.

- There is no trail to be seen.

- Cheers.

- Yeah, cheers to the Chattahoochee.

- All right, man.

♪ Light, yeah ♪ (light music) - Hi, my name is Dave Thomas, I'm one of the rangers here at Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.

My primary duty is the Volunteer Coordinator at the park.

So what that entails is groups like you probably saw today coming in here and doing trash cleanups, but we also have about 86 miles of trail throughout the system.

I'm the trail person at the park.

It's all volunteers that are doing this.

We're doing floats on the river.

We need help.

So that's what we're looking at is this is a unique area.

I've never worked at a park like this before where they're small units, but they're spread out over 48 miles of river.

- I'm Juliet Cohen, I'm the Executive Director of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper.

Our footprint is really the entire 435 miles of the Chattahoochee River.

So from the North Georgia Mountains, upstream loop Helen, all the way down to the Florida line at Lake Seminole.

And we run all kinds of programs throughout the watershed and we do a lot of outreach.

So we're always inviting our 10,000 members and inviting new members to join us to either do stewardship projects like a trash cleanup or getting out on the river for some recreation, paddling, hiking.

We distribute rain barrels and we go to students' classrooms, teach them about the watershed, what their role is in ensuring that we have clean and plentiful water.

- We continued our hike deeper into the untouched wilderness, watching the river get more narrow as we made our way to the headwaters.

We had to find our own path through the dense undergrowth, but the hike was incredibly peaceful with nothing but the sounds of water, birds and our footsteps.

Jason, this is phenomenal.

You know you told me about how beautiful it would be, but all this fall color as well just adds to it and to just be tracing the river step-by-step all the way to the top through such a gorgeous forest.

- This is about as good as it gets when it comes to hiking.

♪ Well, I've been known to drop the ball a time or two ♪ ♪ It ain't the fear of falling ♪ ♪ It's the fear of losing you ♪ ♪ You told me you were leaving on the next westbound train ♪ ♪ You told me I should go back wherever the hell I came ♪ ♪ Daisy, run on by ♪ - There's definitely no longer a trail.

There's nothing, it is just an overgrown forest and we have 5 1/2 to 6 miles to go.

So I hope we are out of here before dark, but I'm not sure we will be.

♪ Like you're cast in stone ♪ (piano music) (light music) The sun was now high in the sky and there were no clouds to soften the light and lessen the harsh shadows.

Photography was getting challenging, but we wanted to see how our phones would handle the tough setting.

They didn't do too bad.

(light music) So we are almost to the headwaters and it is time to just have a little taste of the Chattahoochee.

(light music) Pretty good, actually, yeah.

- So we're here at the very bottom of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area which is 48 miles from Buford Dam.

Right in front of us is the city of Atlanta's drinking water tank where metro Atlanta gets all of its drinking water.

They have a permit to pull up to 180 million gallons of raw water from the Chattahoochee River every day, which gets sent to the treatment plant, which then gets sent to the homes and businesses.

Immediately downstream of us is Cobb County's wastewater discharge.

We have some of Atlanta's wastewater discharges.

So this is the hardest working stretch of river in the entire state of Georgia.

(light music) - This logging road has been a luxury after the bushwhacking we did for hours.

So this is the AT we're coming up on, right?

- Yeah, that's the AT.

And there's the white blaze, it continues.

- And where are we?

- We're right at Jack's Gap.

So right here is where the Appalachian Trail and Jack's Gap meets up.

We're gonna take this side trail down, the blue.

I think it's blue blaze maybe.

Yeah, it's the blue blaze, which goes down to the headwaters and that's our goal.

- Yeah, so we're pretty close now.

- Yeah.

(light music) This is it.

- Man, that's pretty crazy.

I mean, look at this.

I can literally step across the Chattahoochee River and have a conversation with you.

- I wonder just how long it took the river to etch that rock out so it to pour through.

- [Chris] I mean, it boggles the mind.

- And to come out of the ground, like there, there's just a bank.

- [Chris] Yeah, it looks like it comes from nowhere.

- So the difference between this and the Apalachicola Bay is just different in so many ways.

I mean, it's just amazing.

- The contrast of us being down there just a few weeks ago and how vast it was and just how full of water and sea life and everything and then to be here and it's just a tiny trickle.

And you could put your bottle in that and I bet the water would be crystal clear.

It is... - [Jason] Immaculate.

It's beautiful.

- We joke about the difficulty of the hike, but when we're home tonight, I think, I love doing stuff like this.

It's just so rewarding and it almost gives you chill bumps.

- It was well worth it, even though it was really steep and it felt like we weren't even on a trail most of the day.

But to be here, to see where it comes out of the ground, where it all starts after everything we've learned about it, it's just a really fitting end to the Chattahoochee, to learning and tracing it.

And so it's been an excellent day.

Well, all right, man.

Well, this was well worth it.

It will be a memory of a lifetime for sure.

I'm glad we did it and I'm glad we had such a great experience the whole time.

- Awesome.

- Let's go, man.

- Let's go.

♪ Owls in the woods call out ♪ ♪ Trails on mountains climb ♪ ♪ Waves and sand keep beat in time ♪ ♪ Mossy blanket, swirling streams ♪ ♪ Over rocks and dirt ♪ ♪ Run at pace with all the earth ♪ ♪ Could we capture nature's wonder ♪ ♪ Find a way to get lost ♪ ♪ Freeze a frame to say forever ♪ ♪ Adventure worth the cost ♪ ♪ Bees and dandelion green ♪ ♪ Dancing sun so fuse ♪ ♪ Went and gleam together you ♪ ♪ Pocket worries fame again ♪ ♪ We don't focus due ♪ ♪ What is coming into view ♪ (light music) - [Announcer] Funding for View Finders was provided by... - [Outdoorswoman] Let's imagine what outside can be.

- [Outdoorsman] Outside is important.

- It's musical.

(outdoorswoman laughs) - [Outdoorsman] Together, we can create an outside with space for everyone.

- [Announcer] Funding for View Finders is provided by Troncalli Subaru located on Highway 9 in Cumming.

Visit Troncalli Subaru or find out more online at troncallisubaru.com.

(light music) (light music) - [Spokesperson] At Terrapin Beer Company, we make beer for life's adventures, be they far from home or right in your own backyard.

Terrapin, good everywhere, best outside.